Produção do espaço e a morte: urbanização, territórios e práticas fúnebres na Serra Geral de Minas Gerais

Abstract

Death has increasingly become a process regulated by health standards, economic interests, and urban dynamics, even in rural and traditional territories. This study analyzes how the processes of urbanization, space production, and modernization affect funerary spaces and funeral practices in the Serra Geral territory of Minas Gerais. The research adopts a qualitative approach, using interviews, document analysis, and direct observation in Janaúba, Porteirinha, and Matias Cardoso. The results reveal that rituals that were once community-based have been replaced by technical procedures, and that death has been losing its symbolic and collective dimension. While the local population and community leaders value spiritual and emotional bonds with the dead, public managers focus on the management of spaces, and the funeral sector operates between tradition and the market. Cemeteries emerge as spaces of dispute and resistance, shaped by historical inequalities and cultural transformations that directly affect the right to memory and to mourning.