Sur-Urbano Latin American Cities Working Group

One of the central nodes of capitalist circulation in Latin America is a city you may have never heard of. It is also, by some accounts, the largest illicit economy in the hemisphere – raising the question of how central transgression is to the circulation and globalization of capitalism. The city in question is Ciudad del Este, a Paraguayan city at the border with Brazil and it is the subject of Jennifer Tucker's new book "Outlaw Capital, Everyday Illegalities and the Making of Uneven Development".
Tucker explores the city's history, beginning with her connection to Paraguay as a Peace Corps volunteer, and delves into the complexities of street vending, the intertwining of legal and illegal economic activities, and the racialized and class-based disparities within these practices. She weaves personal stories of street vendors with the spatial and economic transformation of Ciudad del Este through malls and informal trade, and the state's role in shaping and sustaining these practices. The episode critically examines how contraband and informal economies are legitimized and contested, offering insights into broader themes of globalization, urban development, and
social justice.

 

00:00 Introduction to Sur Urbano and Guest Jennifer Tucker

00:15 Exploring Street Vendor Life in Ciudad del Este

02:12 Unveiling 'Outlaw Capital': The Book on Ciudad del Este

02:34 Jennifer Tucker's Connection to Paraguay and Research Journey

03:53 The Dynamics of Ciudad del Este's Border Economy

08:18 Theoretical Insights: Outlaw Capital and Accumulation
of Transgression

29:29 Contraband Urbanism and the Struggle for Space

44:25 Methodology and Ethnographic Challenges

48:15 Recent Changes and Ongoing Struggles in Ciudad del
Este

51:50 Concluding Thoughts on Outlaw Economics and Urban
Futures

 

Neste primeiro episódio do Sur_Urbano em português falamos com o professor Nabil Bonduki! Discutimos diversas fases da sua produção acadêmica. Começamos com o livro Origens da Habitação Social no Brasil: Arquitetura Moderna, Lei do Inquilinato e Difusão da casa própria (link abaixo). Em seguida passamos para temas mais contemporâneos, como a reforma do programa Minha Casa Minha Vida e o papel dos municípios na questão da habitação. Nabil conclui compartilhando como a sua experiência na política e na gestão pública impacta sua produção acadêmica.



A co-host Laryssa Krueger é professora e coordenadora adjunta da pós-graduação em Urbanismo Social no Insper, com graduação em gestão de políticas públicas, mestrado em avaliação de políticas públicas pela FAU-USP, e especialista em habitação social.



Materiais discutidos no episódio:

Livro- Origens da habitação social no Brasil: Arquitetura moderna, Lei do Inquilinato e difusão da casa própria

https://www.amazon.com.br/Origens-habita%C3%A7%C3%A3o-social-Brasil-Arquitetura/dp/857448282X

Seminário de 10 anos do Minha Casa, Minha Vida:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19yXPu8K8mr8Qvp5-wM0zCWZ1dBpheZZd/view

Welcome to Sur-Urbano! Our guest today, Raquel Rolnik, may be known to many of you for her critical scholarship and prominent defense of the right to house and the city: Raquel Rolnick. Based out of Sao Paulo, Raquel is professor at the Architecture and Urbanism Department at the University of São Paulo. She has held various government positions including Director of the Planning Department of São Paulo and National Secretary for Urban Programs of the Brazilian Ministry of Cities, and between 2008 and 2014, she was the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing. 

On this episode, we discussed one of her papers which we translated to rent-seeking landscapes, and landscapes for life: https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/indisciplinar/article/view/32741

She described how new financial instruments and technologies have transformed the way we produce or relate to housing.

We discussed her views about  land value capture instruments 

And she ended by talking about how creativity, and resistance, rather than planning, can create new possibilities and change reality

En 2022 la convención constituyente de Chile presentó la propuesta para una nueva constitución que declaraba, entre otras cosas, el derecho a la vivienda digna y adecuada, al amparo del Estado. 

Esto iba en contra de décadas de lo que se conoce como el modelo Chileno de vivienda, que fue creado durante la dictadura militar de Pinochet, y fue el primer programa del mundo en subsidiar la demanda para comprar viviendas.

Para muchos, es el neoliberalismo encarnado, porque está basado en la idea de que el paper del estado es solo como facilitador para que el mercado responda a las necesidades habitacionales del país. 

A pesar de ello, el modelo ha sido celebrado como un éxito - redujo los asentamiento informales, permitió a miles de personas acceder a la casa propia y finalmente, transformó la ciudad de Santiago. Y por eso, ha sido exportado y replicado por todo el mundo. 

Pero, como veremos hoy, este modelo tiene sus límites. Junto con Catalina Vásquez-Marchant, entrevistamos al antropólogo Miguel Pérez, quien estudia cómo se ha ido profundizando la crisis de vivienda en Santiago desde la perspectiva de las personas migrantes.

Leímos su artículo de NACLA, “A Home for All in Chile’s New Housing Occupations".

Miguel argumenta que la experiencia de los y las migrantes muestra los problemas estructurales del tal modelo chileno, pero que también abre oportunidades para nuevas soluciones y formas de ciudadanía en Chile. 

Miguel Pérez es Director de la Escuela de Antropología en la Universidad Diego Portales. Es también Doctor en Antropología Social por la Universidad de California, Berkeley.

Catalina Vásquez-Marchant es licenciada y maestra en Historia por la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Actualmente es estudiante doctoral en University of Connecticut. Su investigación se enfoca en las dinámicas de urbanización en Santiago, Chile durante los años 1970s, 80s y 90s, con énfasis en la vivienda social, los cursos de agua urbanos y las relaciones socio ambientales entre el agua y la ciudad.

Este es nuestro segundo episodio hecho en colaboración con NACLA, el North American Congress on Latin America.  NACLA fue fundada en 1966 para examinar y criticar el imperialismo estadounidense y su intervención política, económica y militar en el hemisferio occidental. Es una poderosa fuente de investigación y análisis sobre América Latina.

When we think of the Amazon region, I think its fair to say that most of us think of the vast expanses of virgin rainforests, crossed by the largest river who gives the area its name. We don’t usually think of cities. And yet, Amazonia is home to 40 million people, 80% of which live in cities. IN other words, from the perspective of the human population, Amazonia is urban. To discuss this, I talk to Adrián Lerner Patrón about two articles. The first, published in NACLA, is titled “The Amazon’s Forgotten Cities’, and the second titled “The Ruins of a Steel Mill: Planetary Urbanization in the Brazilian Amazon”, linked in the show notes.

We talk about the history of urbanization in Amazonia, focusing on Iquitos in Peru and Manaos in Brazil, including the particularities of cities formed in extractive frontiers, the militarized logic to secure them, and the rise and fall of developmentalist hubris.

We delve into the histoyr of the SIDERAMA (Companhia Siderúrgica da Amazônia Sociedade Anônima) steel mill - created in 1961 and liquidated in 1997 - through the lens of planetary urbanization. Overall, Adrián invites us to think about what is unique about Amazonia cities, but also to understand the global reach of urbanization during the 2nd half of the twentieth century and the need to rethink the role of Amazonia during the Anthropocene.

Adrián Lerner Patrón is a Philomathia Fellow in the Consortium for the Global South at the University of Cambridge, with a focus on “Ecologies in Place,” and a lecturer and research associate in Global History at the Free University of Berlin. 

I also want to add that this episode is our first in collaboration with NACLA - the North American Congress on Latin America. (NACLA) is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1966 to examine and critique U.S. imperialism and political, economic, and military intervention in the Western hemisphere.



You can find the two articles here: "The Amazon's Forgotten Cities" in NACLA

 "The Ruins of a Steel Mill: Planetary Urbanization in the Brazilian Amazon” in the Journal of Urban History

This episode is about stolen cars, the relationships between illegal and legal markets, and public security in Brazil. We talk to Prof. Gabriel Feltran from Sciences Po about his new book Stolen Cars: A Journey Through São Paulo's Urban Conflict. Stolen Cars is an ethnography of urban inequalities and violence in São Paulo, told by Gabriel and ten other contributors.

Through the journey of 5 stolen cars in the city, they tell us how stories of everyday life in São Paulo are intertwined with global capitalism, they discuss which social actors are involved in the journey of a stolen car, and how the theft of a car is associated not only with violence, but also with socioeconomic, racial, gender, and spatial inequalities.

Gabriel is an urban ethnographer and Director of Research at CNRS (National Scientific Research Centre – France) and a full Professor of Sociology at Sciences Po. Currently, researches criminal groups and illegal markets in Brazil, based on previous work on everyday social/political dynamics in urban outskirts, focusing on collective action, marginalized groups and "the criminal world" in São Paulo. 

Marcos Campos is an urban ethnographer and a postdoctoral researcher in the International Postdoctoral Program at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (Cebrap). He is also a researcher affiliated with the CASA Group and MTTM. Marcos holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the State University of Rio de Janeiro.



Book: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Stolen+Cars%3A+A+Journey+Through+S%26atilde%3Bo+Paulo%27s+Urban+Conflict-p-9781119686163

CEBRAP article by Feltran (mentioned during the episode): https://novosestudos.com.br/formas-elementares-da-vida-politica-sobre-o-movimento-totalitario-no-brasil-2013/#gsc.tab=0