Publication
Title
Middle class sensorial and bottom-up condominization in Brazil’s post-neoliberal public housing = Sensorio de Clase Media y Condominización de Abajo Hacia Arriba en el Programa de Vivienda Pública Posneoliberal de Brasil
Author
Abstract
In Brazil’s highly segregated urban centers, geographic location is known for its power to instantiate class positionality. Drawing on long term ethnographic engagements with housing beneficiaries of Brazil’s now revamped Minha Casa Minha Vida, I argue that, in the aftermath of the move, first-time homeowners activate remembrances of the hills (the slums where they lived before) to craft novel classed geographies which defy clearcut isomorphisms of class and space. As the once-rising-poor transitioned from peri-urban informal settlements to middle-class urban environments, the material and sensuous qualities of the hills leaked onto the built environment of the projects in unexpected ways. Yet first-time homeowners also engage in new infrastructural practices that challenge fixed understandings of class subjectivity and distinction—a middle-class-making process I refer to as “bottom-up condominization”—. By foregrounding the sensuous and material aspects of socioeconomic membership in the ruins of post-neoliberalism, I attend to the instability and unruliness of middle-class formations. Rather than an objective identifier for social stratification, the post-neoliberal middle class is best defined through its spectral and fleeting qualities —that is, as a “middle class sensorial”—.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Papeles del CEIC
Publication
2023
ISSN
1695-6494
DOI
10.1387/PCEIC.23736
Volume/pages
276 (2023) , p. 1-19
ISI
000992664700015
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 12.04.2023
Last edited 09.08.2023
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