Spatiality, territoriality, places: cartography around the film Parasite

Marco Maggioli;Marcello Tanca

2024-01-01

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Abstract

This chapter examines Parasite through a geographical lens, using Michel Serres’ and Claude Raffestin’s reflections on parasitism, relationality, and territorial production as its conceptual framework. The film is analysed as a “cartographic machine” that constructs spatial and social meaning through its settings, narrative architecture, and spatial metaphors. By mobilising four pragmatics of interpretation—spatial and territorial, hetero‑ and self‑referential—the chapter shows how Parasite articulates forms of spatiality, territoriality, and social antagonism embedded in contemporary urban life. The analysis highlights the film’s synthetic mappability, its representation of classed environments, and the relational dynamics that generate provisional territorialities within the cinematic world.