Thresholds and boundary of a city that still lives

Abstract

This article discusses the connections between subjectivity and urban experience under the light of Walter Benjamin's definitions of thresholds and boundary. While the concept of boundary designates a line that serves to contain and maintain something, avoiding its overflow and defining limits, the concept of threshold would be notable for allowing one to move with considerable ease from one place to another different and sometimes even  opposite place. Although it also separates two territories, the threshold allows to transit through them, unlike the boundary. From these definitions, we emphasize the peculiar understanding of time and space produced by history, as well as the political challenges conceivable by them, in order to question power practices regarding alterity in contemporary capitalism. As a conclusion, the modulation between boundaries and thresholds in urban space acts as an indication to affirm that, throbbing through its pores, through the passages that make it breathe, the city still lives.