Laurent Matthey

‘We do have space in Lausanne. We have a large cemetery’: the non-controversy of a non-existent Muslim burial ground

In the context of the administration of spaces assigned by municipalities for the burial of the dead, this article provides a critical analysis of the techniques for the governance of political collectives of citizens implemented by public authorities. More broadly, this article shows how funerary practices (i.e. the social practices surrounding death—the rituals, the legislation, etc.) can be used to develop a critical reading of the social relations that structure the social production of space. To this end, the authors use the conceptual tools provided by critical legal geography to explore the controversy surrounding the development of a ‘carré confessionnel’ (denominational area) within the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery in Lausanne, Switzerland. Here, a focus on the techniques that allow ‘nomosphere’ technicians to convene a subset of the citizens within the public space reveals the administration of cemeteries as a means of governance, a method for mobilising bodies and a paradoxical means of managing flux.

“The Form of a City”: Pasolini and the Poetic Ecology of the Sign

This article examines the potential contributions of Pasolinian anthropology to urban studies. Pasolinian anthropology aims to articulate a historical moment (i.e., the acceleration of the second industrial revolution in Italy between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s) with environmental and urban transformations. The authors sketch a portrait of Pasolini as a primitive theoretician who supported that which would become known as landscape urbanism. The authors mainly consult Pasolini’s journalistic writings published in two anthologies (Lettere luterane, Scritti corsari) and an incomplete pedagogical manual (Gennariello). The authors also refer to four of his documentary films (Comizi d’amore, Appunti per un film sull’India, Appunti per un Orestiade Africana, and Pasolini e la forma della città) and tangentially to two of his novels (Racconti romani and Petrolio) as well as to his correspondence and poems (particularly Gramsci’s Ashes).

« Le Paradis sur Terre » ? Une géographie culturelle et politique du tourisme. Introduction

Ce quatrieme numero d’Articulo – Journal of Urban Research aborde le tourisme a travers le quadruple regard des marchands de voyages, des chercheurs, des touristes et des acteurs locaux. Bien qu’emanant de disciplines diverses (geographie, mais aussi sociologie et histoire), les contributions rassemblees ici tentent, chacune a leur maniere, de repondre a la question de savoir si le tourisme s’apparente ou non a une experience paradisiaque et de quelle maniere l’analyse geographique est approp...