Urban as a symbolic organizer of the social (Lo urbano como organizador simbólico de lo social)

Gaggiotti, Hugo

Abstract

The city has been one of the most powerful symbolic artifacts to imagine, represent and organize the social. Capel (1975) suggested that "the definition of the urban" exceeds the geography. Economic, sociological, anthropological, linguistic, philosophical and even literary reflections have noticed this phenomenon. As Castells said, urban ideology has deep social roots. It is not limited to academic tradition or official media planning. It is, above all, in the people minds. In the following paragraphs the foundations of the idea of ??the city as a symbolic organizer are discussed. The discussion is conducted presenting, the main ideas that underpin the reasons why the city has been used insistently as a metaphor and analogy of social and organizational. The pioneering work of Capel in this field, in dialogue with the work of Boltanski and Chiapello, based on the analogy between the forms of the capitalist spirit and the urban symbolic world, is used as an example of the scope, drifts and limits of the symbolic representations of the city.

Citation

Gaggiotti, H. (2015). Urban as a symbolic organizer of the social (Lo urbano como organizador simbólico de lo social). In L. Urteaga, & V. Casals (Eds.), Horacio Capel, geógrafo (143-162). Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona

• Acceptance Date: Jun 6, 2019
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2015
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 143-162
• Book Title: Horacio Capel, geógrafo
• ISBN: 9788447542123
• Keywords: organization, urban, simbolic, social representation, Boltanski, Chiapello
• Publisher URL: http://www.publicacions.ub.edu/ficha.aspx?cod=08310
• Additional Information: Additional Information : © Publicacions i Edicions de la Universitat of Barcelona