Philippine E-Journals

Spatial Trauma/Desire: A Postmodern Sociocultural Phenomenon

Jaimee Siao

 

Abstrak:

From precolonial times, bridges have been built by natives for the same fundamental reasons that they are being created today: whether to connect one place to another, to bring people from one place to another (or together). A bridge usually connotes a “link” or, metaphorically, something which brings two things together; serving as the intermediary between two places, objects, or people. What all these signify is that a bridge is meant to facilitate movement.

 

However, a bridge could separate or perhaps, “isolate” a space, person, or community from others, through the act of leaving them behind. It has been an overlooked fact that bridges might also serve as a means of separation, in that a) not everyone has the capability of using a bridge (be it physically–handicapped–or socially–a clash of classes–when there seems to be a spatial stratification, or financially, even), and b) not everyone is entitled to use a bridge. Although there might be no specific case study which might uphold such notions, it still remains that a bridge is capable of becoming a tool in which a person or place (or a group) might be isolated.