Abstract

CHAVES, Ana Paula Nunes  and  AQUINO, Julio Groppa. Trails of an urban heterotopia: the case of Ibirapuera Park, SP. ETD [online]. 2016, vol.18, n.4, pp.802-819. ISSN 1676-2592.  https://doi.org/10.20396/etd.v18i4.8646408.

This paper is based on Michel Foucault's reflections on the theme of spatiality in order to formulate a theoretical overview of the notion of space and, especially, of heterotopic spaces. Regarding the latter, Foucault proposed a unique approach by highlighting other spaces, which denote their marginal, conflicting and subversive purposes in relation to established order. By way of exploring such a general hypothesis, the paper presents the results of an investigation about Ibirapuera Park, urban icon of the city of Sao Paulo, according to two complementary work fronts: official documents on the Park and journalistic discourses about it published in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo from 1954 to 2014. The data analyzed identified a mode of government which turns from social orthopedics to space and conduct control, by isolating deviance and economic modulation generated by it; also, it was detected that, in face of such process, heterotopic trails emerge as unexpected responses to the strategies of governing, that is to say, as creative imagination that challenge the current control mechanisms by positioning itself in the deviance and other possible modes of existence. The paper concludes heading towards the defense of new perspectives with regard to analytical work devoted to urban spatialities, in favor of a broad understanding of the links established among space, government, resistance and spatial (re)creation.

Keywords : Space; Spatiality; Heterotopia; Michel Foucault; Ibirapuera Park.

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