‘Expectant territories’ : quelques exemples de pratiques et poétiques urbaines en Amérique du Nord
Postindustrial societies produce waiting areas and what we call expectant territories. The former are functional places, limited in space and time (e.g. platforms, counters and information desks, waiting rooms, bus stops…). In those places, the waiting time is generally conditioned and endured rathe...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Centre de Recherches sur les Mondes Américains
2016-10-01
|
| Series: | Nuevo mundo - Mundos Nuevos |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/69511 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Postindustrial societies produce waiting areas and what we call expectant territories. The former are functional places, limited in space and time (e.g. platforms, counters and information desks, waiting rooms, bus stops…). In those places, the waiting time is generally conditioned and endured rather than enjoyed and fully experienced by the individuals. The latter, which will be at stake in this essay, are non-functional places, most of the time abandoned or ignored, but whose material and symbolical qualities beget new possibilities and meanings for the individuals/groups that pass through them. Urban culture and the practices associated with it enable one to think the experience of waiting differently. The symbolic appropriation of a certain place, which goes through a physical and mental “journey,” permits to pass from an endured state of waiting to a creative form of expectation and from the anonymous, impersonal place to the mental space or territory. North American cities provide a few telling examples of the process by which the ambiguity of expectant territories is exploited and maintained and of how the individuals and groups appropriate the territories. Ambiguity is also enriched by the photographic medium, which will function both as an illustration and as metadiscourse. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1626-0252 |