Research Article

Building Bridges and Breaking Boundaries: Modernity and Agoraphobia

Author

• • Joshua Holmes None Email Joshua Holmes. (compose email, opens in email app.)
  • UCL

Abstract

The material function of a bridge is to facilitate movement – of vehicles, goods and services, military hardware and people. Symbolically, the bridge is a connector and therefore a triumphant emblem of modernity. But the converse of connection is the breaking, or even transgressing, of boundaries. The bridge is a boundary breaker; an intrusion into bounded space. This paper argues that inherent in modernity is the breaking and remaking of boundaries. This can lead to psychological strain, of which agoraphobia is a manifestation. For the makers and celebrators of modernity the bridge was a symbol of progress, but for critics it represented the inhumanity of ‘progress’, and for individual agoraphobics, terror.

Keywords: agoraphobia

How to Cite: Holmes, J. (2006) “Building Bridges and Breaking Boundaries: Modernity and Agoraphobia”, Opticon1826. 1(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.5334/opt.010606