Making Territorial Claims: Brazilian Hip Hop and the Socio‐Geographical Dynamics of Periferia

Abstract

In this essay I posit that the stylistic divergences in Brazilian hip hop reveal a set of social and geographical dynamics related to São Paulo, the country's largest city and supposed beacon of modernity. The case of São Paulo hip hop speaks beyond Brazil and potentially contributes to larger discussions of the contemporary city complex including the role of the working-class periphery sprawls on urbanism. This text focuses on the primacy of periferia (periphery) as an ideological and spatial concept rooted in the artistic expressions of the "marginal." In their activities, hip hoppers articulate "periphery" as not only a place but also as an epistemology, which in turn works to change the meaning of the city for the historically disenfranchised. Not without its limitations and internal critics, marginality secretes a "magic" or at least retains a pull as hip hoppers and urban, working-class Brazilians, in general, look to convince others of their value in exchange for respect. [

Flipping the City: Space and Subjectivity in the São Paulo Periphery

“…If the center/periphery dyad plays a central role in structuring how Paulistanos conceive of and experience the urban landscape (Carmo ; Moutinho, Alves, and Mateuzi ; Pardue ), my interactions with many Zona Sul residents highlight the polysemic—and at times contested—nature of the category periferia and its associated attributes. For many, socioeconomic class parallels the center/periphery spatial divide, as in this description by Marcos, a longtime community and environmental activist in the outer Zona Sul:…”

“…Noble ambitions indeed, particularly for a city renowned for its inequalities and poor livability (Caldeira ; Holston ; Kowarick ; Pardue ; Prefeitura de São Paulo: Secretaria de Desenvolvimento Urbano ; UN‐Habitat ). In historical perspective, São Paulo’s Strategic Master Plan is the outgrowth of decades of political mobilization around housing and urban living conditions (Friendly ; Holston ; Kohara ; Kowarick ) that accelerated during Brazil’s re‐democratization in the 1980s.…”

“…Befitting the foundations of the São Paulo Strategic Master Plan and Brazil’s constitutional urban planning framework, my analysis of the “periphery” and periphery subjectivities builds on Lefebvre’s tripartite conceptualization of space as simultaneously a physical location, an ideological construct, and a lived experience (Lefebvre ; see also Pardue on the construction of the “periphery” in São Paulo). My discussion builds on seven four‐ to eight‐week‐long research trips in São Paulo I conducted from 2014 to 2018, including a three‐year National Science Foundation‐supported project (2016–2018) on the so‐called “new middle class.” I begin with an overview of São Paulo’s spatial landscape and the polysemic category “the periphery.” I then turn to two differently scaled examinations of intentional spatial and cultural transformation in São Paulo’s Zona Sul (southern zone) peripheries.…”

Bangkok's Two Centers: Status, Space, and Consumption in a Millennial Southeast Asian City

“…In São Paulo, Pardue suggests that the notion of periferia , or “periphery,” comprises both a “material space” and “contested ideology” in Brazilian hip hop for expressing marginality and exclusion from the benefits of global capitalism (2010:53). In a similar—albeit, reversed—sense, the culture of materialistic status display in the malls, restaurants, and other exclusive spaces in downtown Bangkok articulates a desire for inclusion into the new physical and ideological center of Thailand's neoliberal modernity, enacted through the conformative and performative expression of its symbolic language of consumerism.…”

Cape Verdean Creole and the Politics of Scene‐Making in Lisbon, Portugal

“…As the adage goes, rap began as a treatise on “who you are, where you're from, and the place to be.” Rakim, the legendary U.S. rapper, extended hip hop's notion of place to include “attitude” in his popular mantra from the late 1980s, “it's not where you're from but where you're at.” Rappers and scholars have demonstrated in detail that the combination of life experience and local knowledge is a powerful resource for poetic and ideological articulation (Forman 2002; Maxwell 2003; Fradique 2003; Condry 2006; Rose 1994; Gilroy 1993; Pardue 2010). Where one “is at” is a matter of positionality and of stance.…”