RE-SIGNIFYING SPACE

ON THE TERRITORIES AND PLACES OF THE SEM-TETO MOVEMENT

Abstract

The production of space implies much more than its material aspects; in fact, it presupposes the whole set of spatial practices undertaken by the social actors. The spheres of power and symbolism, respectively represented in terms of spatial concepts by the ideas of territory and place, should be stressed as the
material production of space. Considering this, it is important to understand how social actors create spatial images (or “socio-spatial representations”), a
phenomenon which usually occurs during or after the processes of territorialisation. This is particularly interesting in relation to the social movements, which generally give their territories a political-symbolic meaning through the creation of new names for their spaces (that is, through the creation of a new toponymy) and which also develop alternative meanings for current words and expressions – consequently creating what we have characterised as a “spatial
lexicon”. In the present article, we present and discuss some words and expressions, as well as a number of geographical names, created/proposed by the
sem-teto movement in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.