Heritage, Place, and Neighborhood: Itineraries as Public Space Contention in Ring-Road Districts of Madrid
Public Spaces: Times of Crisis and Change
ISBN: 978-1-78635-464-8, eISBN: 978-1-78635-463-1
Publication date: 5 November 2016
Abstract
Links between urban areas and public space have always had a central presence in the field of Urban Sociology. During the last four decades, and in relation with globalization processes, reflection about city places and what constitutes the “public” has increasingly been in line with what has been called an “emplacing heritage process,” which emerged as a controversial point of intervention in urban areas. In this sense, itineraries have been considered of primary importance in urban heritage signification, recognition, and symbolic production. In short, these routes appear as ways in which public space is materially and symbolically occupied, becoming emplacing heritage processes in themselves.
In this chapter, we study two heritage-making processes through neighborhood itineraries, which are carried out in district territory and are located in two peripheral neighborhoods belonging to the City of Madrid (Hortaleza and Carabanchel). Ultimately, the point here is that these routes are not merely a pathway that “goes” along acknowledged heritage places; these itineraries are an emplacement and a signification of patrimony itself. These processes act as markers of iconic places and as remembrance performances of neighborhood memory. We would argue that routes around historical places in Carabanchel, as well as the “Three Wise Men” popular parades in Hortaleza bring shared geographical imaginaries, collective memory, and iconic places together in everyday experiences of both places. These itineraries change both urban sites in terms of their neighborhood heritage by disputing spatial discourses and imaginaries of heritage, urban place, and neighborhood.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank all the individuals who offered their time and insights into the shape of Carabanchel and Hortaleza “neigbourhood heritage routes” for interviews and fieldwork as it has been shown here.
Thanks also to the Editorial Board of Research in Urban Sociology and especially to the editors, João Teixeira Lopes and Ray Hutchison, for placing their trust in this subject proposal.
For extremely helpful comments on a draft of a few features and focuses of this work (and many others), we are grateful to María Lois and Heriberto Cairo at Department of Political Theories and Forms and Human Geography at Complutense University of Madrid.
The researches on which this chapter is based were funded by the Ministry of Education and Complutense University of Madrid that granted us PhD scholarships. We want to thank to the Faculty of Sociology and Political Science of Complutense University for calling for applications in order to grant different features of the publication process.
Citation
Limón López, P. and González García, S.C. (2016), "Heritage, Place, and Neighborhood: Itineraries as Public Space Contention in Ring-Road Districts of Madrid", Public Spaces: Times of Crisis and Change (Research in Urban Sociology, Vol. 15), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 255-285. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1047-004220160000015011
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
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