Hospitals as border zones

interstitial practices and experiences of religious plurality in public health spaces

Abstract

This article analyzes the public hospital as a symbolic and socially dense space, where different meanings about health, care, suffering and spirituality intersect. The objective of the article is to investigate how public hospital spaces are configured as border zones that allow the emergence of interreligious and interstitial practices and experiences, as well as to analyze how these experiences contribute to the expansion of health care from an intercultural and ethical perspective. As a methodology, the analysis is based on a literature review and theoretical reflections on the concept of religious plurality in public spaces, articulating knowledge of health, religion and language. As a result, it is observed that hospitals, although guided by a hegemonic biomedical rationality, are traversed by multiple meanings that emerge from diverse religious practices — from prayers to the presence of religious representatives from different religious traditions. These meanings are not always institutionally legitimized, but they resist, circulate and, at times, are incorporated into care practices, especially when there is openness to interreligious dialogue.