Weaving peripheral presences in the city of São Paulo

Abstract

This essay stems from a research that explores the metropolis of São Paulo as the stage of struggle, which, shaped by the logic of the capital, has transformed and continues to transform peripheral areas into large stages of insurgency, leading to the removal of residents and the homogenization of landscapes, customs, and cultural manifestations. However, it is within those peripheral communities that reactions that not only challenge but also reshape ways of collectivity arise. Activism, academic initiatives, community celebrations, artistic gatherings, and bailes funk demonstrate that the periphery creates new urban narratives of resistance and insurgency that validate the existence of peripheral subjects. These actions subvert the segregating rationale, showing that the city transcends the physical dispute over territorial space, also encompassing the symbolic, the aesthetic, and the political. Therefore, in this dispute, São Paulo manifests itself as a place of constant tension and as fertile ground for the creation of insurgencies, where daily uprisings prove that other horizons are viable.