PÚBLICO, PRIVADO E CONTEXTOS FUNERÁRIOS

Abstract

Debate on the dynamics of public/private spheres of life in classical Athens, focusing its appearance on historical and archeological studies of funerary practices, rites and spaces. Starting off with a review pointing at few capital works in the field, we stress their agreement on the problematic character of status displays in funerary rites, regarding to a positive evaluation of political and civic life for constructing Athenian citizens' identity. Yet we argue that the models through which funerary contexts are defined (often a priori), in terms of their presence in everyday social life of Athenians,  berween the "public" and the "private'', cannot provide strong rools for analyzing uses of spaces in a more contradictory perspective on social power relations and spatial practices. To make our point we add to this short bibliographical review a re-reading of Sophocles' Antigona as a debate on funerary contexts of uses of space for public display. confronting political institutions with relations of philia.