• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • UA Graduate and Undergraduate Research
    • UA Theses and Dissertations
    • Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • UA Graduate and Undergraduate Research
    • UA Theses and Dissertations
    • Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of UA Campus RepositoryCommunitiesTitleAuthorsIssue DateSubmit DateSubjectsPublisherJournalThis CollectionTitleAuthorsIssue DateSubmit DateSubjectsPublisherJournal

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    About

    AboutUA Faculty PublicationsUA DissertationsUA Master's ThesesUA Honors ThesesUA PressUA YearbooksUA CatalogsUA Libraries

    Statistics

    Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

    Utopian Projects and the Troubled Paradise. Grassroots Discourses and Strategies of Change at the Periphery of Fortaleza, Brazil.

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    azu_etd_16464_sip1_m.pdf
    Size:
    2.467Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Mandache, Luminita-Anda
    Issue Date
    2018
    Keywords
    activism
    Brazil
    city
    grassroots politics
    poverty
    violence
    Advisor
    Greenberg, James
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Publisher
    The University of Arizona.
    Rights
    Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
    Embargo
    Release after 12/01/2022
    Abstract
    In Brazil, inequality, segregation, and urban violence go hand in hand. Not surprisingly, Fortaleza, a city situated in Northeastern Brazil, is the world’s second most unequal city and also Brazil’s most violent. This dissertation aims to understand how residents of the poorest area of Fortaleza—Conjunto Palmeiras—respond to these problems. Conjunto Palmeiras is an extremely poor neighborhood and has the highest homicide rates in the city, yet it is also an important site of activism. Therefore, I seek to understand the tensions between poverty and activism present throughout the history of this neighborhood. What does Conjunto Palmeiras tell us about how marginalized people living in a peripheral neighborhood manage to create and develop political imaginaries of change and act upon them? I ask this question with reference to three historical moments between 1970 and 2017 when collective attempts of problem-solving are clearly evident. The first of such episodes is represented by 1970s to late 1990s period, marking the military dictatorship in Brazil, but also one in which a wave of social movements accompanied the democratization process. The second of these moments is represented by the period 2002 to 2016, which in Latin America, in general, marked the Pink Tide, an era of governance by leftist parties, specifically by the Workers' Party (PT) in Brazil. My focus here is on understanding the contradictions embedded in the institutionalization of a once grassroots project—the solidarity economy movement, rooted in liberation theology—into a state-sponsored program. The third moment is the period between 2015 and 2017, characterized by an increase in drug-related violence in Fortaleza, related to the presence of large drug factions (locally called facções). This dissertation emphasizes that the creation of local political imaginaries, upon which activists developed particular strategies, has been constantly shaped by activists' personal life experiences and interaction with both liberation theology and PT leaders. Shifting understandings of the political landscape reshaped perceptions of poverty and ways to tackle it at the local level. In Brazil, the 13 years of the PT governance put in place a set of socio-economic programs that enabled social mobility for the country's historically marginalized groups. However, during this period, the discourses of older social movements that promoted an egalitarian ideology and a working-class consciousness were replaced with more neoliberal and individualistic understandings of poverty. According to this view, poverty is the result of economic marginalization and can be eradicated by “inclusion” in the market. Yet, over the years, the consciousness-raising process necessary to the formation of a working-class consciousness developed by the liberation theology movement, contributed to the creation of a certain political imaginary among former movement members that inspires the strategies of some local activists. For example, with the increase of homicide rates in Fortaleza, drug related violence emerged in places like Conjunto Palmeiras as a generator of new forms of resistance, where activists dare to challenge the presence and authority of drug gangs through symbolic practices. This phenomenon of change challenges current trends in “resistance” studies to romanticize social movements and portray local leaders as heroes since it situates such forms of activism into larger historical processes of change, which can only be understood in close relation to most activists’ daily experiences with poverty.
    Type
    text
    Electronic Dissertation
    Degree Name
    Ph.D.
    Degree Level
    doctoral
    Degree Program
    Graduate College
    Anthropology
    Degree Grantor
    University of Arizona
    Collections
    Dissertations

    entitlement

     
    The University of Arizona Libraries | 1510 E. University Blvd. | Tucson, AZ 85721-0055
    Tel 520-621-6442 | repository@u.library.arizona.edu
    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2017  DuraSpace
    Quick Guide | Contact Us | Send Feedback
    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.