ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this article is to discuss the resignification of place and non-place in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazilian urban spaces. The guiding question is: how to think about the resignification of places and non-places during the pandemic of the new coronavirus in Brazil? The hypothesis leads to the conception that the anthropological place and the non-place are established by a relationship of otherness. The analytical epistemic approach and the deductive reasoning method are predominantly used, and the research is procedurally bibliographic. The article is divided into two sections, the first deals more densely with place and non-place in a period of restricted occupations and sociability, while the second deals with the analysis of non-place and spatial restrictions in Brazilian cities due to the pandemic. The concepts of place and non-place underpinned formulations for analysis, as the conclusion pointed to the resignification of these spaces in the historical moment of the pandemic in Brazil, where fear and conflicts of power generated discouragement and dispersion in relation to measures of social distance to control the pandemic in Brazilian cities and that the relationship of alterity in the occupation of places and non-places during a pandemic awakens our care for the Other.

Keywords:
Alterity; Human rights; Non-Place; Place; Pandemic

RESUMO

O artigo tem como objetivo central discutir a ressignificação de lugar e não-lugar no contexto da pandemia da COVID-19 nos espaços urbanos brasileiros. A pergunta norteadora é: como pensar a ressignificação dos lugares e não-lugares durante a pandemia do novo coronavírus no Brasil? A hipótese direciona para a concepção de que o lugar antropológico e o não-lugar são estabelecidos por uma relação de alteridade. Usa-se predominantemente a abordagem epistêmica analítica e o modo de raciocínio dedutivo, sendo que procedimentalmente a pesquisa é bibliográfica. O artigo está divido em duas sessões, a primeira aborda mais densamente lugar e não-lugar em um período de restrição das ocupações e sociabilidades, enquanto o segundo ocupa-se da análise do não-lugar e das restrições espaciais em cidades brasileiras devido à pandemia. Os conceitos lugar e não-lugar alicerçaram formulações para a análise, pois a conclusão apontou para a ressignificação destes espaços no momento histórico da pandemia no Brasil, onde o medo e os conflitos de poder geraram desalento e dispersão em relação às medidas de distanciamento social para controle da pandemia nas cidades brasileiras e, que a relação de alteridade na ocupação de lugares e não-lugares durante uma pandemia nos desperta o cuidado com o Outro.

Palavras-Chave:
Alteridade; Direitos Humanos; Lugar; Não-Lugar; Pandemia

1. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic¹ 1 As defined in the health dictionary, a pandemic is “epidemia que se estende a quase todos os habitantes de uma região e que pode compreender uma zona geográfica muito vasta” (an epidemic that extends to almost all the inhabitants of a region and that can cover a very vast geographic area. Free translation. PAIM, ALONSO, 2020). , in the middle of the 21st century, raised totally new and challenging questions for living in cities² 2 On March 11, 2020, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared that COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus - SARS-CoV-2, has now been characterized as a pandemic (OPAS, 2020, np). . Coexistence in Brazilian cities has completely changed its arrangements; private spaces are the main places of coexistence, as opposed to public spaces, which have been emptied. These new spatial arrangements have placed us, in a first moment, in a place of isolation. And, in a second moment, in a non-place, because places started to integrate much more in a virtual way than in a physical way. Places, both anthropological and non-places, started to have a direct and integrating relationship. People interact in these dimensions in a virtual way, because the isolation is only physical for most of the population, which has remained integrated in the communication networks.

The new spatial arrangements put us in another place, that is, we began to question ourselves about the importance of old habits of contact with physical places, if we really need to be present to know them. The new concepts show us that we can visit museums, galleries, cities, and even stores, virtually. A set of activities that were normally practiced in person, in loco , and that now no longer need to be done, which, in a way, has streamlined the routine. This demonstrates that many pleasurable activities that can be performed in cities have become accessible to a significant part of the population. That is, we don't need to go to a museum to see an art exhibition, we can access it from our home, at any time of the day and, in many cases, free of charge. This turn of access to cultural activities, for example, meant a new form of democratization of places, a guaranteed access for the entire population³ 3 Obviously, it is important to delimit the social and income asymmetries that exist in Brazil. Just as the historic moment represented by COVID-19 can mean a possible democratization of spaces often accessed only by the elite - such as cultural spaces, such as concerts and theaters, also revealed the problem of social inequality. There were many reports of children, adolescents and adults who did not have quality internet, or technology compatible with the participation of these places. In some cases, the most basic access to basic education was hampered by the lack of technology, internet or income to pay for them (ONU, 2020; FOLHA DE SÃO PAULO, 2020). .

To think about the issue of place and non-place in the cities during the pandemic, we work with a concept formulated by Marc Augé in his classic work " Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da supermodernidade ", in which the author reflects on the concepts of anthropological place and non-place, with formulations that are different in their peculiarities and, at the same time, complementary. We understand the importance of working with concepts and categories that support our reflections, in an interdisciplinary sense, which seeks to make the connection between theoretical assumptions and effective social practices. Thus, all the work of reflection presupposes a consistent theoretical foundation, since it demonstrates that even the most classical concepts need an unfolding, of applicability in different historical contexts.

For the most effective organization and ordering, the article is divided into two parts, which have singularities, but are complementary, since they refer to the same basic theory. The first section called "The place and the non-place in a period of restriction of occupations and sociabilities", in a first conceptual instant, is a perspective of approach to a problem, which was unfolded in small articulations with the context of belonging of the pandemic in Brazil. Some concepts and categories of understanding in Marc Augé are clarified and, later, an attempt is made to signify them in an explanatory and illustrative way. Given the peculiarities of the Brazilian context of theoretical production, it is essential, at this point, the search for conceptions of theoreticians from different perspectives for the understanding of multiple realities, especially in a pandemic period, and in a country that presents so many contrasts.

In the second section of the article, called " The non-place and the spatial restrictions in Brazilian cities: spaces of sociability affected by the pandemic", we seek to make an exercise of dialogue and complementarities between the conceptions of Marc Augé with assumptions of experiences and social practices in urban spaces. It is understood to be fundamental to establish theoretical conceptions that make it possible to unveil issues present in the daily life of each subject, because all dimensions of this daily life were affected in the pandemic period. In Brazil and in the world, practices were incorporated in Brazilian cities, such as issues of social distance and sanitary habits⁴ 4 Non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) are public health measures with individual, environmental and community outreach. Individual measures include hand washing, respiratory etiquette, and social distancing. Social distancing, in turn, covers the isolation of cases, quarantine applied to contacts, and the voluntary practice of not frequenting places with crowds of people. (GARCIA; DUARTE, 2020). Likewise, according to WHO guidelines, the use of masks is part of a complete package of prevention and control measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Mask use alone is not enough to provide an adequate level of protection or source control, and other measures at the individual and community levels must also be taken to contain respiratory virus transmission. In addition to mask use, adherence to hand hygiene, physical distancing, and other infection prevention and control (IPC) measures is crucial to prevent inter-human transmission of COVID-19 (OPAS, 2020b, p. 7). . Thus, Augé points out that all cities have their specificities and, at the same time, are influenced by other cities in the world.

The article seeks to make a theoretical and methodological problematization from some defining assumptions for the research object. It is assumed that it is essential to establish a problem and confront it with a theoretical perspective in order to seek a solution or more adequate answers. Therefore, at first, we discuss the conjuncture of place and non-place in Brazilian cities during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the paradoxes in the social relations of both places and non-places. In a second moment, theoretical support from a classic author is presented to provide parameters for understanding the proposed question. In this way, the author gives theoretical support to think about a current problem, experienced in the present time.

2 The Place and the non-place in a period of restriction of occupations and sociabilities

When we think about the matter of place and non-place in a period of pandemic, more specifically, in the case of the Brazilian space, which is a territory of large dimensions, both physical and social, the multiplicities of realities are accentuated. The complexity of the occupation of space in Brazil, according to Schwarcz (2015, p. 22), reveals a demography built since the colonization process, from the 16th century onwards. Territorial occupations suffered a great impact with colonization, prior to this process, the native population of what we now understand by Brazilian territory lived in an irregular and nomadic way. With the beginning of the colonization process by the Portuguese, the population density intensifies near the Brazilian coast, the place of arrival of navigations. As colonization and economic activities intensify, Territorial spaces outside the coast also become more occupied. It is observed that, even in the 21st century, some places continue with a population with low density, more specifically in the Northern Region of Brazil.

As a result of the historical process of spatial occupation in Brazil, in Schwarcz's observations (2015, p. 29), the population tends to concentrate in places where productive activities manage to generate a set of job opportunities and the production of wealth. Thus, the occupation of spaces has changed over the centuries. In periods when productive activities were more pronounced in certain regions, their occupation was denser. When productive activities changed places, the population tended to migrate to places that became more productive. There are several discussions to encourage populations to remain in their places of belonging, and to develop economic activities in a more sustainable way, but these projects are restricted to certain regions. Due to the difficulty in offering opportunities, among others, the process of exodus to more economically productive places continues to occur in Brazil.

The dynamics of places in Brazil is a recurring and constant process for productive activities. There is an economic thought linked to development that has repercussions on population displacements, which gives a very specific meaning to places, where some become extremely dynamic, and other become perennial places, as historical memories of experiences.⁵ 5 Tuan (2005) highlights that certain landscapes, especially urban ones, convey a sense of relief, pleasure, but others cause nostalgia, distress, anguish. . Nothing more illustrative than this process is the example of a Northeastern migrant who lives in São Paulo and refers to his place of origin with a set of symbolisms. This example reflects how places are essentially symbolic, according to Michel de Certeau ( 1998 CERTEAU, Michel de. A invenção do cotidiano: artes de fazer. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1998. ), who works with dimensions and symbolic constructions linked to spaces.

The entire Brazilian population has a place of belonging, as Augé ( 1994 PESAVENTO, Sandra Jatahy. Os pobres da cidade. Porto Alegre: UFRGS, 1994. , p. 73) calls it, an identity, relational and historical place.⁶ 6 It is also the meaning presented by Hannah Arendt (2000), that is, what makes us human is the relationship between individuals, we cannot atomize ourselves, the purest humanistic meaning, which is concerned above all with the human condition. . The author correlates the identity, relational and historical dimensions as complementary to the understanding of the appropriation of the place, either individually or collectively. The observation of the historical dimension proposed by Augé (1994AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1994.) refers to what has been seen in the last five centuries, to a social, economic and cultural construction of the Brazilian space. Since the foundation of the small villages until the consolidation of the cities in Brazil was very much related to the productive activities, the Brazilian cities, since their remote origins in the 17th century, were already born under the optic of spatial segregation. Spaces destined for the occupation of certain social groups according to their possessions, and the outskirts of cities with irregular occupations by the known as poor of the cities, as Sandra Pesavento (1994PESAVENTO, Sandra Jatahy. Os pobres da cidade. Porto Alegre: UFRGS, 1994.) calls it. In Brazil, Cities were born dichotomous and with spatial segregation, a heritage that remains symbolized even today in the places. Spatial occupation is an essentially historical phenomenon, and due to this link with historical time, it also changes over the years. Thus, it is possible to affirm that each city, in Brazil and in the world, is linked to a historical dimension, which creates symbolism in the present time.

Returning to Augé's statements ( 1994 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1994. , p. 73), the place is identitary and relational, that is, identities of places are created throughout their process of occupation and relational permanence of people and communities. This bond is so strong that it remains in the imagination, both individual and collective, making the feeling of belonging go beyond physical and imaginary boundaries. Identities linked to places even tend to transform places into places of memories, as stated by Pierre Nora ( 1993 NORA, Pierre. Entre memória e história: a problemática dos lugares. Revista Projeto História, n. 10. PUC-SP. São Paulo, 1993. pp. 7-28 ). They are individual and collective memories represented and symbolized in the places of belonging, making people and communities feel perfectly identified with both the anthropological place and the essentially symbolic place. It starts, then, a dichotomy implanted between the conception of place and non-place, according to Augé's ( 1994 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1994. ) conception. People and groups are always related to places: places of belonging or places in transition.

From these brief considerations by Augé, we can focus on the conceptual differences presented by the author for the definition of place and non-place. According to Augé (1994, p. 73), the place can be defined as identitarian, relational and historical. The author follows his line of reasoning in the sense that if the same place cannot be defined as identitarian or relational, and much less as historical, it must be defined as a non-place. With these statements, the author presents a true dichotomy between place and non-place. Beforehand, it is possible to think about the temporary places we occupy daily, which we do not establish as historical, identitarian and relational. Perhaps the first paradox implanted is the realization that in everyday life we ​​occupy places and non-places, that cities are typical examples of the paradoxical dichotomy of places. But, on the other hand, we can imagine that these two conceptions are complementary, as they are part of a certain arrangement of spaces.

However, Augé (1994, p. 74) draws attention to the oppositional and essential dialectic between the different conceptions by stating that there is evidence of the non-place with a place, that is, that the non-place never exists in a pure form, other places are recomposed in it, that relationships are constituted in it in all its dynamics. This shows us that even what the author considers a non-place can be considered for a while as a place, showing that relationships can be reproduced in this place, concretizing occupations, even if casual. In this way, even the non-place can constitute itself as a place, even if it is not considered identitarian and historical. Accordingly, one can conceptually take the non-place as a place of instants, of moments, of transitory occupations, so that any person or group can occupy it for a certain fraction of time – shorter or longer.

To establish a more precise definition of non-place, Augé ( 1994 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1994. , p. 79) alludes to Michel de Certeau ( 1998 CERTEAU, Michel de. A invenção do cotidiano: artes de fazer. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1998. ), who defends the existence of a kind of negative quality of non-place, stating that it is an absence of the place itself. Certeau ( 1998 CERTEAU, Michel de. A invenção do cotidiano: artes de fazer. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1998. ) refers to the negative quality as the absence of establishing an identity with this non-place, perhaps because it is considered transitory, it becomes more difficult to recognize it as a place of belonging. Considering the conceptualizations between place and non-place in Augé's work ( 1994 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1994. ), it is important to know the readers and commentators of his work, in an attempt to establish some applicability of his theory in the Brazilian case, specifically, in the problematic of places in a pandemic period in Brazil, because we understand that the relational place changed its configuration in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the comments of the commentator Teresa de Sá (2012, p. 211), Marc Augé essentially analyzes the relationship between the anthropological place and the non-place in contemporary society. Augé ( 1994 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1994. ) transported the matter of alterity to space⁷ 7 The philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas, in the work Totalidade e Infinito , proclaims the care of the Self for the Other as a constitutive element of humanity. In this sense, it is possible to draw a parallel with the experience of the present time, in which the care so far proven to combat the new coronavirus depends on collective adherence. In Levinasian thought it is possible to associate the realization of the human being with the matter of alterity, that is, the recognition of an Other that, by definition, cannot be reduced to the same. The Other, in otherness, is a face that presents itself before the Self, in a face-to-face relationship, and that demands from the Self an ethical behavior that allows it to be, that is, to exist differently (LÉVINAS, 1980). . It is considered as a fundamental position, in a pandemic moment, to think about the otherness of space, since the historical moment imposes new confrontations on us. In Brazil and in the world, the pandemic reached social spaces, people had to remain confined in private spaces and, fundamentally, have the spaces segregated in a situation of isolation. The relationship of alterity, when thought of in the dimension of place and space, is a social practice that allows respect for the space of the Other⁸ 8 From Emmanuel Lévinas' classifications. " O Outro metafísico é outro de uma alteridade que não é formal, de uma alteridade que não é um simples inverso da identidade, nem de uma alteridade feita de resistência ao Mesmo, mas de uma alteridade anterior a toda a iniciativa, a todo o imperialismo do Mesmo; outro de uma alteridade que não limita o Mesmo, porque nesse caso o Outro não seria rigorosamente Outro: pela comunidade da fronteira, seria, dentro do sistema, ainda o Mesmo. O absolutamente Outro é Outrem; não faz número comigo. A coletividade em que eu digo ‘tu’ ou ‘nós’ não é um plural de ‘eu’. Eu, tu, não são indivíduos de um conceito comum" (The metaphysical Other is other of an alterity that is not formal, of an alterity that is not a simple inverse of identity, nor of an alterity made of resistance to the One, but of an alterity prior to all initiative, to all imperialism of the One; other of an alterity that does not limit the One, because in that case the Other would not strictly be Other: by the community of the border, it would be, within the system, still the One. The absolutely Other is Others; it does not do number with me. The collectivity in which I say 'you' or 'us' is not a plural of 'I'. I, you, are not individuals of a common concept. Free translation. LÉVINAS, 1980, p. 26). . During the pandemic of the new coronavirus, this relationship has proved to be challenging, because, according to the guidance of the World Health Organization (WHO), it is not enough to isolate only people belonging to the so-called risk group to adhere to total social isolation, everyone needs to maintain, minimally, social distancing to inhibit the circulation of the virus (PAHO, 2020bOPAS. Organização Pan-americana de Saúde. Orientação sobre o uso de máscaras no contexto da COVID-19: Orientação provisória 5 de junho de 2020. 05 jun. 2020. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://iris.paho.org/bitstream/handle/10665.2/52254/OPASWBRACOVID-1920071_por.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y . Acesso em: 22 set. 2020b.
https://iris.paho.org/bitstream/handle/1... ).

In addition, in the line of reasoning of Sá (2012, p.212), Marc Augé always started from a conception of space in which the bases are found in the thought of Georges Simmel ( 2013 SIMMEL, Georg. Sociologia do espaço. Estudos Avançados, v. 27, n. 79, p. 75-112, 1 jan. 2013. Disponível em: Disponível em: http://www.revistas.usp.br/eav/article/view/68704 . Acesso em: 29 set. 2020.
http://www.revistas.usp.br/eav/article/v... ), which emphasizes that the physical and social space are together, one does not exist without the presence of the other. There are dichotomies and, at the same time, necessary approximations that are totally complementary. Space is socially constructed and occupied, otherwise it would only be a physical geographic space, but, as we are dealing specifically with social spaces, in the specific case of the pandemic, the approximations and complementation are fundamental and necessary for us to understand how social relations are practiced in the cities⁹ 9 The mismatch with the Other makes it difficult for the subject to connect with the place, without there being a connection with the spaces, increasing the feeling already promoted by the individualistic society, accentuating landscapes of fear and non-places, visible to man in different ways, whether it is a street, a square or a store, they can all represent an environment that causes aversion, as the person does not recognize himself there and does not perceive the socially shared life (TUAN, 2005). . In a pandemic context, spaces have become increasingly complementary and, at the same time, isolated. There is a social complementation of integration that communication networks make possible, allowing us to interconnect virtual spaces in a dynamic way, facilitating communication and integration. The place has become more and more social.

One of the fundamental issues for the understanding of non-places is the understanding of some dimensions that characterize and dimension them in contemporary societies. There are many – present and interconnected – examples in cities, with the lives of people and communities. Augé ( 1994 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1994. ) makes some considerations about these spatial definitions, an example of non-place, in cities, are the large shopping centers, as they exist in all cities, but are transitory, occasionally occupied during certain hours of the day or night. However, they are essentially transient. Therefore, considered as non-places. Other examples of non-places listed by Augé ( 1994 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1994. ) are roads, highways, public walkways and other spaces that are occasionally occupied.

Directing the reflection to apply it to the research object of this article, one can think about the occupation of these non-places in different periods during the COVID-19 pandemic. At many times, motivated by movement restrictions, recommendations from local health authorities, etc., non-places such as roads and sidewalks remained isolated. Some of these were even closed, such as shopping malls, which were forbidden to the public in practically all cities in Brazil for several weeks. In some cities around the world and in Brazil, the closure and total isolation of some streets was decreed, so that momentarily, the non-place ceased to have an important relationship with the social place of the population, which needs care and protective measures in a pandemic. The relations of place and non-place are important to understand the complementation and the existing dichotomies. Even if these dichotomies are imaginary, they are present in social relationships. The case of social isolation practices, specifically in Brazil, generated a series of discussions and problems, as sociability was totally compromised.¹⁰ 10 Even though there are discrepant asymmetries in the Brazilian social strata, with economic, educational and housing differences, besides not having an equal adherence to meet the measures to combat the pandemic, it can be said that there was a compromise of sociabilities in the most varied Brazilian realities (GOES, RAMOS, FERREIRA, 2020). .

As in Augé's ( 1994 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1994. ) conception, the non-place is not identitarian, that is, people and groups do not have a relational and identitarian behavior, and in certain cases they can be considered negative places. Regarding the relational aspect, the pandemic also imposed a new routine on patients admitted to hospitals. Unlike other times, in addition to social distancing, hospitalization did not allow visits, requiring total social isolation from families and friends (LEMOS, 2020; OLIVEIRA, 2020). Many reports in Brazil reaffirmed that hospitalized people had a feeling of total loneliness, as isolation did not allow for the establishment of identity ties with the place where they were hospitalized; even the faces of the professionals who attended them were always hidden behind the vestments. It is a non-place that nobody wants to be, but it is a temporary and transitional place, people stay for a certain period. In the specific case of the pandemic, this non-place became almost a threat, a latent fear of having to remain in that place, as isolation causes a certain fear in people.

Accordingly, the place is the stage of existence, it is the way in which the human being experiences the space with all the senses it has, making the place an emotional-spatial reference, which becomes an “arquivo de lembranças, de realizações que inspiram o presente” (archive of memories, of accomplishments that inspire the present. Free translation. TUAN, 1983 TUAN, Yi-fu. Medo da Cidade. TUAN, Yi-fu. Paisagens do medo. Tradução de Lívia de Oliveira . São Paulo: EdUNESP, 2005, p.231-275. , p. 171). That is, places represent the subject's bonds of belonging and affectivity with the environment, which can be described as a feeling of topophilia.¹¹ 11 According to Tuan (1983), the world is drawn in the landscape, gradually building bonds of belonging, affection of the subject with the environment, which can be described as a feeling of topophilia. ( TUAN, 1983 TUAN, Yi-fu. Medo da Cidade. TUAN, Yi-fu. Paisagens do medo. Tradução de Lívia de Oliveira . São Paulo: EdUNESP, 2005, p.231-275. ). Evidently, when establishing the relationship between place and one's own perceptions about the Other and life, one realizes that some places transmit memories, of a past that comforts and transmits tranquility and psychic stability; on the other hand, one also realizes - exacerbated in the pandemic context - that some representations of places cause fear, anguish, and a sense of emptiness.

This perception of emptiness before places becomes more latent when the place itself is uninhabited, it is an emptiness in itself and also symbolic. The reduction of the subject's contacts with the Other, promotes a feeling of fear, aversion of the subject to the place, like patients who are isolated from family and friends when they need hospital care. Also, the prohibition of places that once represented meetings, joys, such as parks, event halls and squares, give new meaning to the feeling about the place and empty space promotes a feeling of fear, of topophobia.¹² 12 It derives the meaning of topocide, that is, the killing, deliberate annihilation of places (TUAN, 1983). Likewise, in addition to the notorious modification of places and non-places, discourses about the disease shaped the landscape of urban spaces, in particular, as a landscape of fear.

Augé ( 1994 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1994. ) makes a complete discussion about the role of cities in the contemporary world, stating that every city is a world, which means that it contains, simultaneously, a space symbolized and used by individuals and another that reflects the features of the current world. This statement is extremely important at the time of a pandemic, as it has imposed itself on the whole world and, here in Brazil, the repercussion was overwhelming with an extremely significant number of deaths for the Brazilian population. Faced with the difficulties presented by the pandemic, the fragility of scientific research emerged, with few resources, being limited to face a public health problem in cities. As the author states that the anthropological place and the non-place are established by a relationship of alterity (AUGÉ, 1994 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1994. ; LEVINAS, 1980), we need to understand and respect the place of the Other¹³ 13 According to Emmanuel Lévinas, the ethics of alterity defends the conception that we are responsible for each other, that the relationship with the Other, with his/her safety, his/her well-being is our responsibility. Or, to put it another way, our responsibility with the experience of the other is total, indeclinable and non-transferable, not based on a contractual or principle ethics, but on an ethics that is given freely and spontaneously. To the extent that we are negligent and reckless in caring for the Other, we are ethically failing, in default of our position of responsibility and good living in relation to the Other. Therefore, in Levinasian thought, humanity exists from ethics, the interpersonal relationship presupposes an ethical dimension from the understanding that the other is our responsibility, and this humanizes us. Taking into consideration the moment of health crisis caused and evidenced by the pandemic of the new coronavirus, the acts of disregard for the health and well-being of the other in order to prioritize the market, make the notion of Levinasian ethics and otherness outrageous, because, by denying the necessary care for the other, the responsibility for that experience is denied, the existence of otherness is trivialized. On the other hand, the moment demands our care for the other and for myself, and by attending to the protective measures, the alterity relationship of the ethical experience is rekindled. . This need is constant, because many people are unable to establish this relationship of alterity to respect the place of those who have lost friends and family in cities.

3 The non-place and the spatial restrictions in Brazilian cities: spaces of sociability affected by the pandemic

The city is the place of collective living, in which countless and multiple trajectories intersect in the course of the lives of its citizens. It is the ceremonial place, filled with symbols and meanings that permeate human subjectivity. At the same time, it is the place of encounter, of experiences, even though the poet Vinícius de Moraes ( 2020 UFRGS. Você sabe o que é um vírus? Disponível em: Disponível em: https://www.ufrgs.br/microbiologando/voce-sabe-o-que-e-um-virus . Acesso em: 27 set. 2020.
https://www.ufrgs.br/microbiologando/voc... ) has warned that “[...] A vida é a arte do encontro, embora haja tanto desencontro pela vida” (Life is the art of encounter, although there is so much mismatch in life. Free translation).

As a place of encounter and disagreement, of coexistence and living together, of the realization of multiple individual trajectories in the same territory, the city, from the year 2020, saw itself empty, slow down, silence in the face of the real and concrete threat of a obligate intracellular parasite¹⁴ 14 Which “means they are completely dependent on other cells to reproduce. They do not have their own host-independent metabolism. Its basic structure is made up of just two components: some kind of nucleic acid and an envelope made of proteins, called a capsid. The set of nucleic acids with the capsid is called a nucleocapsid. Some viruses, however, especially those that infect animals, have, in addition to the nucleocapsid, an outermost envelope of a phospholipid nature called the envelope. (Free translation. UFGRS, 2020). , called the Sars-coV-2 virus. The accelerated spread of this virus around the world, affecting practically all cities on the globe, started in the Asian continent at the end of 2019, and in the beginning of 2020 the contamination spread to other continents, thus reaching Brazil in February.

Due to the speed of dissemination and ease of contagion among humans, the WHO changed the classification of the disease, initially understood as an epidemic, to be considered a pandemic, forcing States to adopt health safety protocols (controlled distance and isolation), especially in places of high human density. In other words, the city in its daily life was strongly affected by sanitary measures that aimed to contain the speed of the virus dissemination and, in this way, try to avoid overloading the health systems to care for patients with severe complications of the disease. However, after more than a year in a pandemic situation, the overload and exhaustion of the Brazilian health system collapses, the country reaches the sad mark of more than 290 thousand deaths due to the pandemic disease, with a daily average of 2,730¹⁵ 15 According to information from Jornal Folha de São Paulo in March 20, 2021. See: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/equilibrioesaude/2021/03/brasil-tem-2730-mortes-por-covid-em-24-h-e-media-movel-de-obitos-bate-novo-recorde.shtml . victims. Waves of fear and sadness spread through Brazilian cities, but also waves of indignation and revolt appear in the urban landscape.

From one moment to the next, the city as a place (with multiple meanings, flows, forms, etc.) has become a non-place. In such a way, the reflection on the place seems to have reached everyone, without asking permission and even unconsciously, it brought significant changes in the way subjects perceive, look and live their subjectivities, interfering with their own identity. From the moment that public places need to be emptied to contain the spread of the virus, the private place, the house, has become even more fundamental, as it has become the place of protection¹⁶ 16 It is noted that during the COVID-19 pandemic there was an increase in domestic violence, not only in Brazil, but as a worldwide phenomenon, as reported by the G1 newspaper on November 23, 2020. See: https://g1.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2020/11/23/com-restricoes-da-pandemia-aumento-da-violencia-contra-a-mulher-e-fenomeno-mundial.ghtml . That is, the home was not in all cases a place of safety, and women and children had to face the pandemic and violence at the same time. , work, leisure, studies, etc. COVID-19 was not just a health crisis that emptied cities and filled homes, COVID-19 reconfigured our understanding of home (ALCALÁ, 2020).

This period of controlled distancing or social isolation, recommended by international and national health authorities linked to the World Health Organization - WHO, recommended by disease and epidemiology research centers, was attended by some public authorities in our country. In the Brazilian case, the physical and social control and distancing measures, indicated and proven as a necessary and effective measure for the control and reduction of the circulation of the common invisible enemy, did not come from the Chief of the National Executive Power, but through decrees of the local administrative political authorities – the municipal mayors – and also by the governors of the nation’s member states¹⁷ 17 In relation to the Federal Executive Branch - the Union -, the President of the Republic's stance was always against the measures of controlled distancing and social isolation, adopting a denialist stance, with strong criticism of the decrees of the mayors and governors who adopt such measures to protect the population and lower contagion rates. . The fear of contagion and the risk of death from complications of the disease for the so-called risk groups¹⁸ 18 The risk group is basically formed by elderly people, people with serious diseases or heart disease, lung diseases, among others. However, with the mass spread of the contagion, in a second and third wave of the disease, children, young people and adults without morbidities also became victims of the Sars-coV-2 virus in its variants. became a strong reason for the isolation (not only physical, but also psychological and social) of the subjects.

However, the discrepancies between the control and restriction measures adopted by mayors and state governors were not matched by the attitudes of the federal executive that, at all costs, tried to deny the seriousness of the disease, adopting as its discourse the need to maintain economic activities, above all. In this sense, the non-places, which are also spaces or territories in dispute by various public and private sectors, were under dispute, with invisibility or silence on the part of the public power on their speeches on restrictions or relaxation of the measures adopted in the pandemic.

It is worth demarcating the asymmetry of the impacts generated (GOES; RAMOS, FERREIRA, 2020), moments of crisis highlight the inequalities that already exist in modern society, poverty, lack of basic sanitation, access to drinking water, adequate housing, nutritious food, among other. It also shows the disposability of life, especially for the most vulnerable groups.¹⁹ 19 Several authors address the issue of the disposability of some lives. Michel Foucault advocated the passage from “make die and let live” to “let die and make live”, Giorgio Agambem theorized about Homo Saccer , also, Judith Butler addresses the precarious lives of vulnerable groups, and more recently, Achille Mbembe developed the concept of necropolitics. All these terminologies are about a utilitarian view of life, where some are more equal than others, in the words of George Orwell. . Debating social and spatial relationships in the face of a pandemic, in a country as unequal as Brazil, is to talk about very dissonant fears, the uncertainty of having medical treatment, loss of income, and living with other illnesses, such as violence, depending on skin color, creed and address. Thus, although COVID-19 affects us collectively, which generates a feeling of collective fear, in individuality it is very different. Vulnerable population groups are hit twice, once by the virus, and once by the disparate contrasts of an unequal society²⁰ 20 Navarro (2020) argues that one of the most striking aspects of the responses to the COVID-19 crisis is the degree of securitization and militarization of public health policies at the global level that it accompanies, taking as a guide the discourse of the WHO and the figure of the state of exception, where he interrogates the moral and biopolitical rearrangement of public space that derives from this process, taking into consideration the differentiation of its effects in terms of exposure to risk and violence depending on racial, gender and class variables, in different geographical and political contexts, and that may extend after the pandemic, unless the space of protest is recovered. . It is a moment that calls for the resignification of many of our values ​​and, in particular, a rehabilitation of the ethical framework of our societies (LIPOVETSKY, 2004LIPOVETSKY, Gilles. Metamorfoses da cultura liberal: ética, mídia e empresa. Trad. Juremir Machado da Silva. Porto Alegre: Sulina, 2004., p. 34).

The city, which brings with it a complexity of places, in which subjects share social references that are incorporated into their identity, becomes an ideal and perverse scenario for the propagation of an invisible enemy, imperceptible through the senses, perceptible only through the lenses of ultramodern laboratory equipment, accentuating fears, generating insecurities and silencing the commonplace. Reducing to almost zero social relations in public space²¹ 21 According to an interview with Francisco Sierra (Del Valle; Bedenes; Noreña, 2020), the pandemic quarantines the very idea of ​​public space, especially the informative function, with what the authors qualify as mediatization and dialectic of looting and public health that has normally take place in times of extreme crisis and acute social instability. . And, the difference in postures of mayors and governed to combat the pandemic - as they are more directly connected to the population that suffers the consequences of the contamination of COVID-19, in relation to the almost absence of measures on the part of the federal executive, demonstrated that the pandemic was raised to political-ideological issues, highlighting the field of disputes between public interests and ultra-liberal private interests. And, in this game of interests and ideologies, the population was left helpless, it was affected and consumed by the disease.

Ironically, this scenario raised several questions and reflections, among them the question of non-place developed by Marc Augé ( 2012 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus Editora, 2012. ). According to the author, the non-place is a constructed space that enables the acceleration of time, in which relationships of solitude are established, associated with the idea of ​​solitary contractuality, contrary to what is practiced in its opposite – anthropological places²² 22 The anthropological place is defined as an identity, relational and historical space. The non-place is its opposite, that is, it is the non-identity, non-relational and non-historical space. There is not, necessarily, a territorial relationship of a specific social stratum or group associated with the non-place (AUGÉ, 2012). –, which are sociability relations (AUGE, 2012 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus Editora, 2012. ). Accordingly, with the controlled distancing measures enacted by state governors and municipal mayors, necessary to stop the speed of contagion and expansion of the virus, they formed relationships of loneliness, disorientation and fear.

Originally, the development of the idea of non-place is associated with circulation and consumption, the economic use of the place, non-political and social. This is because in the non-place one notices a certain uniformization, increasing depersonalization through loneliness, anonymity, the reduction of the state of bonding agent, to the extent that identity is defined by the path.

However, the notion of non-place brings in itself an ambiguity, not being something rigid and rigorous under the scientific aspect; "mais interessante sob o ponto de vista da análise social é encontrar uma imagem do todo que não é a recomposição minuciosa das partes. Corresponde empiricamente a um conjunto de construções com características muito diferentes" (more interesting from the point of view of social analysis is to find an image of the whole that is not the detailed recomposition of the parts. It corresponds empirically to a set of constructions with very different characteristics. Free translation. SÁ, 2014, p. 209). Among these constructed spaces that Augé ( 2012 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus Editora, 2012. ) refers to there are airports, shopping centers, hotel chains, hypermarkets, freeways, among others. As well as the bus and the movie theater, in which the subject can transit without being noticed, without necessarily interacting with another, without exchanges. In fact, the other is not even considered.

Social reality cannot be reduced or simplified. This means that “o não lugar como espaço empírico pode ser do ponto de vista social simultaneamente um ‘lugar antropológico’ (e vice-versa)” (the non-place as an empirical space can be, from a social point of view, simultaneously an 'anthropological place' [and vice versa]. Free translation. SÁ, 2014, p. 213). For Augé ( 2012 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus Editora, 2012. ) the non-place must be identifiable not empirically, but as a space created by the gaze that takes it as an object; thus, the non-place of some can be the place of others and, as an example, he cites passengers in transit at an airport (for whom the place is a non-place) and the people who work at that airport (for whom the place is an anthropological place). In this way, public transport, offered in our cities, in a reduced way in this long period of pandemic, is the non-place for some and, for others, the place of fear due to the possibility of infection by the virus.

In Augé's ( 2012 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus Editora, 2012. ) perspective, the non-place allows a large circulation of people, things and images in a single space while transforming the world into a spectacle with which subjects maintain relationships based on images, as spectators of an intensely codified place that no one is truly a part of. The author's thinking seems to be permeated by the search “em saber como os não lugares podem provocar uma perda de nós mesmos como grupo e sociedade, prevalecendo agora apenas o indivíduo ‘solitário’” (to know how non-places can cause a loss of ourselves as a group and society, with only the 'lonely' individual prevailing now. Free translation. SÁ, 2014, p. 211). The non-place is the space constituted in spectacle, a space of the others without the presence of the others. In an ambivalent way, the home that could have been intensified as the place in this long period of restrictions of movement and sharing with the other, became, for many, a non-place, to the extent that it caused the loss of ourselves as a group and society.

However, the social strata with more stable and privileged economic conditions, which remained connected to the virtual world, kept working from a distance and in a synchronous way. Many of these subjects, deceived by the desire to do everything, absolutely everything, in an increasingly shorter period of time, seem to miss nothing of what is going on around them, as well as, in the world. Counter factually, this prevents them from living in the physical space they occupy.

Augé's non-place ( 2012 AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares: introdução a uma antropologia da sobremodernidade. Campinas, SP: Papirus Editora, 2012. ) is characterized, in other words, by the reduction of social relations in the public space, by the passivity of the citizen and by the rhythm of changes that exceeds the rhythm of life itself. The subject dismisses the physical presence of the other, thus reducing the sociability relations that characterize life in the city.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken and transformed all these compositions of place and non-place. As the subject was removed from the street, from public spaces, in which social interactions used to happen, even if transiently and against their will (since the political-administrative authorities of the cities, personified in the person of the municipal mayor, were responsible by the decrees that determined the rules of quarantine, isolation or social distancing, as well as lockdown²³ 23 Expression that translated into Portuguese means total blockage or confinement; is an isolation protocol that generally prevents people or loads of animals and objects from leaving an area. This isolation protocol, in the Brazilian case, can only be initiated by the local political-administrative authority (the municipal mayor). ) , subjectivities were changing and the confusion between places and non-places acquired new contours.

The home space became the place of isolation, loneliness, work (for the social stratum that managed to maintain their activities at home office), uncertainties and also fear in new dimensions and configurations. This same space – that of the home, may have been perceived by some other subjects in other ways linked to the idea of ​​security, coziness, protection and affection. According to Giglia ( 2020 GIGLIA, Angela. Repensar las ciudades des del encierro domestico. UNAM. Abr.2020. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://www.academia.edu/43024004/REPENSAR_LAS_CIUDADES_DESDE_EL_ENCIERRO_DOMESTICO . Acesso em: 24 mar. 2021.
https://www.academia.edu/43024004/REPENS... ), from the moment that the public space can no longer be used for meetings, both social and work, this function is done through online connections from home, in an environment that must simultaneously enable a set of other activities, such as children's schooling, adult work, rest and recreation, all of which suddenly fall into the house we inhabit. That is, the house became a highly multifunctional place overnight, requiring adaptations to new needs. On the other hand, the logic of “diz-me onde vives que te direi quem és” was emphasized, to “diz-me onde vives e te direi qual o risco de contágio” (tell me where you live and I will tell you who you are was emphasized to tell me where you live and I will tell you the risk of contagion. Free translation. GIGLIA, 2020 GIGLIA, Angela. Repensar las ciudades des del encierro domestico. UNAM. Abr.2020. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://www.academia.edu/43024004/REPENSAR_LAS_CIUDADES_DESDE_EL_ENCIERRO_DOMESTICO . Acesso em: 24 mar. 2021.
https://www.academia.edu/43024004/REPENS... ).

Accordingly, from an individualistic perspective, concerns with the common good and with the other in their ethical dimension are replaced by a grammar that only aims at the I, the Ego, consumption, immediacy, with apathetic postures towards the suffering of the other (LÉVINAS, 1980), excessively hedonistic and narcissistic. There is also the rhetoric that defends the well-being achieved through merit, each one deserves it, the cult of “everyone for himself”, of “if I am here it is because I deserved it”, of personal success by any means ( LIPOVETSKY, 2004 LIPOVETSKY, Gilles. Metamorfoses da cultura liberal: ética, mídia e empresa. Trad. Juremir Machado da Silva. Porto Alegre: Sulina, 2004. ) through a process of individualization and atomization of social relations ( ARENDT, 2000 ARENDT, Hannah. A Condição Humana. 10. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitária, 2000. ), to the detriment of otherness, solidarity, fraternity and collective projects.

It is in this context of the disappearance of care for the Other in the face of exacerbated individualization, which denies the common good, the collectivity or concerns beyond those inherent to one's own performance, productivity, competitiveness, and consumption, that the discussion arises about how the death of the Other is seen by me, especially during the new coronavirus pandemic. Within this spectrum, there is the relativization of death, the disposability of life, of the life of the Other, the denialism that refuses the gravity of the crisis experienced in the current moment.²⁴ 24 There are plenty of speeches or posts by important political agents, such as Donald Trump, in the United States and Jair Bolsonaro, in Brazil, minimizing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which are exhaustively repeated, in order to take shape, denying the disease severity, scientific discoveries, politicizing the economy, health, and life itself (SANCHES; MAGENTA, 2020). .

Human sociability activities in cities were suspended or prevented from functioning, due to the risk of spreading the virus, which proved to be voracious in its dispersion among individuals – bars, restaurants, parks and public squares, schools and universities were closed to the public. Also, the places understood as non-places, by some²⁵ 25 For example, in the case of the shopping mall, the place can be perceived as a non-place for a middle-aged adult who walks through its corridors and, at the same time, it can be perceived as a place of sociability (memory, history, affection) for a teenager who finds his friends in it, without focusing on the consumer relations for which it is destined. , such as commercial centers and shopping centers, could not function for months in most Brazilian cities – contrary to the nature for which they were designed and built. The current world of globalization has mobility and consumption as its “founding principles”. And, these fundamentals of globalized capital have been hit hard by the pandemic. Mobility was restricted, large-scale consumption was limited to basic necessities such as food, hygiene products and medicines. On the other hand, the commerce offered through digital platforms, called e-commerce, with delivery systems by post office, by transport companies and delivery by motorcycle drivers has grown exponentially. This is because, in the physical-face-to-face modality, only essential services²⁶ 26 Establishments such as supermarkets, pharmacies, hospitals, funeral homes, etc. were allowed to open, but with reduced capacity, except for the medical-hospital services to fight the virus and other serious diseases that worked with an overload in relation to their capacities.

Definitively, the new reality brought by the pandemic that appeared, and still appears, in the cities and their inhabitants, in no way resembles the previous period of "normality"²⁷ 27 See article: Coronavírus: as ruas antes e depois do início da pandemia, from the G1 channel, which brings images of places in the city of São Paulo, showing the before and after of the isolation measures due to the quarantine. https://g1.globo.com/bemestar/coronavirus/noticia/2020/03/20/coronavirus-as-ruas-antes-e-depois-do-inicio-da-pandemia-fotos.ghtml . . A kind of vacuum has formed in urban society. The subjects needed to slow down their individual trajectories to try to understand the new reality that unveiled itself, in which loneliness, isolation, and anonymity were not related to the non-place of yesteryear, which symbolized freedom, but were the result of a circumstantial health coercion.

Sociability spaces were directly affected by the pandemic situation that took place. Brazilian cities were silent. The virtual world has become the meeting place between individuals, an encounter that is not physical, but that brings encouragement insofar as it makes it possible, through a Wi-Fi connection, to see and speak with those “Others” who are far away, but somehow you want them to be physically close. However, not all city residents had or have access to this wi-fi connection, as their access is conditioned on payment and among the tragic consequences that the pandemic has brought are the increase in unemployment, the closing or suspension of thousands of posts and employment contracts, among others.

Facing this situation, the federal government was pressured to make available an assistance budget called “emergency aid²⁸ 28 Emergency aid is a financial benefit intended for informal workers, individual micro entrepreneurs, self-employed and unemployed without monthly installments, until the end of 2020, conditioned to the approval of the applicant's registration with the Instituto Nacional de Seguridade Social - INSS and aims to provide emergency protection in the period of facing the crisis caused by the Coronavirus pandemic – COVID-19. ”, which has benefited millions of Brazilians and boosted the local economy and markets. But, in a second wave of contagion and continuity of the pandemic, this aid needs to be reissued. The need to reinvent the conditions of survival in places of dense agglomeration and spatial restriction, such as the existing villages and slums in our cities, relied on the organizational capacity of non-governmental entities of the organized civil society. Establishing new and different forms of solidarity.

On the other hand, the manifestations of solidarity of some business groups, in campaigns of material assistance to populations in adverse conditions and social vulnerability of the urban space, also proved to be important for overcoming the crisis triggered by COVID-19. Although such donations have significantly decreased in this second year of the pandemic, they are still the only breath for millions of Brazilians. Also, thousands of gestures of human solidarity were observed, on the part of the population that is not part of the so-called risk group. These facts have given rise to a new hope for a new sociability.

The conflicts of political and ideological power established between the federal sphere on one side and the state and municipal spheres on the other, brought and continue to bring great damage to our cities, because the population cannot visualize a way out of the health and economic crisis that affects them. And, facing this lack of perspective in the short, medium and long term, they feel discouraged and hostage to fear.

On the other hand, it is necessary to remember that the spaces of cities in Brazil are also irregular and asymmetrical, as not all of them have sufficient planning, basic sanitation for the entire population, access to equipped health units, etc. With the pandemic, this proved to be another socio-spatial problem, as a large amount of the urban population live in these asymmetrical spaces, with a lack of resources and lack of basic urban infrastructure that interfere with their living conditions. One of the big problems in Brazil was exactly keeping the population isolated within the space of the house, often without adequate conditions to maintain their activities and relationships with family and friends. The identity relations with the anthropological place are reflected in the difficulty many face in remaining confined in small spaces, deprived of their relations with other places²⁹ 29 The pandemic forces us to rethink the relationship of humans to space, and the relationship of humans to each other, in urban space. To this end, Giglia (2020) argues that we will have to change not only the way of being in space, but also imagine new spaces, of another type and size, that respond more adequately to the need for physical distance, allowing them to continue living in the city, enjoying the presence of other people, but avoiding the experience of immersion in the crowd. To think that the quality of central urban life can extend to the entire urbanized territory is to invoke an unfeasible utopia if profound changes are not made in urban governance, affecting above all the real estate market, in search of a less unequal city. In short, faced with an empty public space, emptied of meaning, it is imperative to place at the center of reflection the problems of connection, among others, the habitability of housing. .

A possible way out of this situation is mass vaccination of the population. However, vaccination has been proceeding at a slow pace. Meanwhile, our hospitals remain congested, unable to cope with the large demand of sick individuals. And, despite the high risk of infection and the high number of daily deaths from the pandemic disease, in many Brazilian cities there are people who go out on the streets without protective masks, gather in clandestine parties and seaside resorts, forcing local authorities to adopt increasingly restrictive measures. There is a clear division among the population: on one side are those who take care of themselves and observe the restrictive measures imposed by local and regional authorities out of respect for life and common interest, because they fear not only being contaminated and dying, but also contaminating others; on the other side are those who still believe that it's just a little flu, something unimportant, a friction, which doesn't justify the economic losses. The complexity of the health, social, and economic situations tend to become more complex in our cities, for which individual solutions are insufficient.

However, it is interesting to observe that, in this situation of restriction of urban mobility and social distancing, new perceptions have emerged. The urban bus and train, perceived by its users, in general, as a non-place of yore, becomes the place of encounter with the Other, mediated by the fear of an invisible threat (the Sars-coV-2 virus), but which works, paradoxically, as a kind of certainty, a confirmation that one is not alone or dead. The perception of the other, as well as the rescue of otherness, the ethics of responsibility and care for the other, respecting their home, because the otherness of the Other “só é possível se o Outro é realmente o outro” (is only possible if the Other is really the other. Free translation. LÉVINAS, 1980, p. 24), seems to flourish in this pandemic time, arouses antagonistic, paradoxical feelings of fear and courage to move forward. Perhaps, now, with more sociable, less isolated trajectories, because, after all, the city is the place for collective living and in it one needs to be prepared to meet the demands arising from this period that is so different and dominated by fear.

4 Conclusion

Thinking about the configuration of cities in a period as atypical as a pandemic requires a reflection far beyond theoretical and methodological parameters, it requires from researchers an approach that contemplates matters of a scientific nature and, at the same time, of social practices elaborated by the people who inhabit them. Social practices are as diverse as possible and imaginary, as people act differently for a number of reasons and influences. What we can immediately see is that the notion of place in cities has changed significantly in this emblematic scenario, in Brazil and in the world, the threat came from a virus with high destructive power. Supposedly, we built an imaginary that distanced us from the threat of such a potentially lethal virus. We anticipated dangers with nuclear weapons, but the destructive power of a virus that threatened the whole world in the present time, made the experiences with plagues, endemics and pandemics – that were in the social memory – emerge. The forms of reactions and care were similar, with sanitary measures and the practice of social distancing, resignifying the notion of place.

Cities in Brazil and in the world are the main locus of people's experience, that is, urban spaces are the most inhabited as opposed to rural spaces. Cities had to reinvent themselves, places were consecrated for sociability, they were resignified, almost transformed into non-places, alluding to the theorist Marc Augé, who teaches us that non-places are devoid of identity elements. For urban people to abandon, or keep a distance, even if momentarily, from these places, to daily relocate themselves in private spaces, affects the conception of identity and relational place. For the majority of the population, the distancing from public places generated a feeling of isolation, a way of living more circumscribed to the private space, which is the house; all relational spaces needed to be connected virtually to the house. The public spaces in the cities were abandoned, and some were even banned, as a health safety measure.

All the measures taken in cities in this time of pandemic reinforced the perspective of the non-place, that is, almost like a locus, from where we shouldn't be, a prohibition, a certain fear of occupying these places. Even the places that we considered as important and identitarian. However, fear, power conflicts with their political-ideological discourses generated discouragement and a certain dispersion of part of the population in relation to the measures of controlled distancing for the control of the pandemic in Brazilian cities.

Fear is part of all cases of plagues and pandemics, it makes people try to preserve themselves in certain places, considered more protected. This fear is historical, it is a feeling and also a representation, because death is something fearful in both the West and the East. This fear has been re-signified and taken on new forms in cities, mainly because they have the largest number of people in built social spaces. We need to consider that cities, in the specific case of Brazil, present different forms of organization, both in a more planned urban space and in an irregular suburban space.

One can see that theoretical and methodological perspectives are always plausible to be applied in different historical contexts, because they provide us with bases to think about the daily problems experienced by the population. The reflective exercise that we propose in this article is to clearly understand the dimensions of the anthropological place with the non-place, because this dichotomous and, at the same time, complementary relationship is where the social practices of everyday life are established. Therefore, the places were re-signified with the intention of understanding how a certain social and public health problem, such as a pandemic, places us in conflict with a life construction that we establish in the social world. The cities were also re-signified, places were relativized, often the virtual space itself took on a dimension not previously experienced by the population.

To conclude, we take up again one of Marc Augé's central ideas, which places the relationship of places as essentially bearers of otherness relationships, provoking us to think about our place and, also, the place of the Other. In the context of the pandemic in Brazil, the meanings of non-place, especially, were resignified for the inhabitants. However, as far as places are concerned, an asymmetry was noticed in these re-significations, as for the neediest social strata, or those who were already excluded before the pandemic, only the geo-political-social needs were accentuated, besides revealing the discrepancy of Brazilian realities, where some have all the comfort, space and possibilities to develop their activities at home, and others do not even have the guarantee of a decent place.

Finally, we can leave open the questioning of the paradoxical relationship between the democratization of certain places - such as museums, theaters, and cinemas - that before the pandemic were accessed almost exclusively by the elite and that during the pandemic open their virtual doors to the public, and, on the other hand, about the practices of appropriation by the inhabitants that emerged in this pandemic context. That is, we should reflect that with the emptying of public spaces the place of protest ( NAVARRO, 2020 NAVARRO, Pablo Pérez. Pandemia y orden público: el espacio de la protesta. Voluntas - Revista Internacional de Filosofia. v. 11. n. 4. 2020, p. 1-8. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://eg.uc.pt/bitstream/10316/90546/1/Pandemia%20y%20orden%20p%C3%BAblico%20el%20espacio%20de%20la%20protesta.pdf . Acesso em: 23 mar. 2021.
https://eg.uc.pt/bitstream/10316/90546/1... ) – where rights can be claimed – is also emptied because one can only exclusively enjoy with tranquility private places – without depending on public places – those who own them. Therefore, the pandemic has made clear the need for resignification of both public and private places and non-places. Still, there is a need for us to respect, occupy, and affirm the anthropological place of each one and the place of the other. The relationship of alterity in the occupation of places and non-places during a pandemic awakens our care for the Self and for the Other.

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