A periferia como chave de interpretação para a questão urbana: os agentes da produção do urbano e o cotidiano de espoliação em uma cidade média

Abstract

The general objective of this work is to study construction processes of urban peripheries in the city of São João del-Rei, located in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Seeking to be based on well-founded empirical research, fieldwork was carried out in four peripheral neighborhoods of the city, with the application of semi-structured family interviews and the implementation of a residential survey by sampling in four locations. Associated with the field research, a bibliographic investigation was also carried out to rebuild the trajectory of studies on the urban issue in Brazil and its possible interlocutions with the present research. In the quest to undertake an investigation that would allow, from case studies, to build interpretations not only focused on the local scenario, but that were also comparative and comprehensive in relation to the Brazilian urban reality, a theoretical perspective committed to the analysis of the structural and historical aspects of the national urban formation was adopted. On the other hand, the specific elements of the empirical reality were highlighted, through the analysis of the residents' perspectives in relation to the experience of urban life and their daily practices of appropriation and construction of the urban. The research indicated that the formation processes of peripheries in Brazilian cities comprise two analytical dimensions that are empirically inseparable, namely, on the one hand, the economic, political, demographic and socio-spatial dynamics that overdetermine the objective formation of urban territories and, on the other hand, the perceptions, experiences and practices – individual, family or collective – through which residents of the peripheries manage to appropriate portions of the urban space, as they laboriously build housing, infrastructure and conditions for urban life. It was possible, from the analysis, to sustain a relational conception of periphery that allows understanding the differences subscribed to the dynamics of formation of each locality, as well as the processes by which a certain peripheral neighborhood assumes and transforms, over time, the functions that plays in relation to other spaces in the city. Finally, it is highlighted that the uniqueness of the peripheries in relation to the other portions of the urban space consists of the tension resulting from the incompleteness of the urbanization pattern in the territory, inherently linked to urban spoliation.