Paradigm or paradox? The ‘cumbersome impasse’ of the participatory turn in Brazilian urban planning

Abstract

The Brazilian urban reform movement expanded citizen participation in decision-making processes through a policy environment motivated by a right to the city (RTC), a collective development strategy for political transformation. Yet recent events evidence that social exclusion and spatial segregation remain dominant features of the Brazilian city. These contradictions have led planning scholars and practitioners to grapple with misalignment between the reform movement's paradigmatic goals and its paradoxical failures. We build upon this genre of thinking to assess critical areas of paradigm and paradox in Brazilian planning-insurgent urbanism, informality and knowledge-each of which is rooted in the lesser-understood concept of autogestão for improving the equity of land division through urban planning. 1 Although not all inclusive of the issues faced by Brazilian cities, these three categories were selected for best representing how Brazil's participatory turn established a range of paradigmatic and paradoxical conditions that can help us to understand cities in Brazil and beyond and might better leverage autogestão in the future.

The contradictions of participatory planning: Reflections on the role of politics in urban development in Niterói, Brazil

“…Though Brazil's planning experience has resulted in a transformative policy environment in many respects, gains in access to planning processes have been tested by gaps in the quality of participation (Friendly & Stiphany, 2018). Though Donaghy (2011), Wampler (2011), and others highlight clear examples of participatory processes that were inclusionary and pro-poor, such effects did not happen cohesively across Brazil, nor were they successful in breaking with traditional decision-making processes on urban policies (Rolnik, 2013).…”

Preserving the (right kind of) city: The urban politics of the middle classes in Belo Horizonte, Brazil

“…Brazil is no exception, and much has been written about the country’s unequal socio-spatial pattern, ‘marked by unregulated capitalist development and inadequate access to housing and land for low-income urban populations’ (Friendly and Stiphany, 2019: 273). Analysing the Brazilian experience, Holston (2008) has focused on the political practices of segregated citizens in the informal autoconstructed peripheries.…”

“…This movement gained momentum during the country’s re-democratisation process when a new window for popular participation was provided, culminating in intense social mobilisation and debate around the elaboration of the 1988 Constitution (Caldeira and Holston, 2015; Maricato, 1988). A slow but continuous process of urban reform evolved, with the introduction of legal and institutional changes which turned the country into ‘a “laboratory” for new local governance and direct democracy strategies’ (Friendly and Stiphany, 2019: 274).…”

The Place of Social Citizenship and Property Rights in Brazil’s ‘Right to the City’ Debate

“…Yet even before the instability that rocked the country in 2013, an ongoing discussion surrounded a profound ambivalence towards Brazil's democracy as a result of its failure to escape its legacy of unequal citizenship (Hagopian, 2011). Indeed, Brazil's urban history has been marked by deep paradoxes (Holston, 2008;Friendly and Stiphany, 2019). Fischer's (2008) work on a 'poverty of rights' in Rio shows, paradoxically, that hope in the power of progressive law and citizenship has acted as a counterweight to inequality, anger, and cynicism driven by successive economic crises and consistently unequal rights.…”

“…In this article, I view Brazil's urban transformations and debates on the right to the city through a focus on three issues: (1) the rights dimension of such debates; (2) the role of the social function of property in urban legislation; and (3) the role of insurgent planning evident in Brazil's urban social movements. This article is reflective and exploratory, based on a review of the literature, as well as the author's extensive work on cities in Brazil, urban policies, and the right to the city (Friendly, 2013(Friendly, , 2016(Friendly, , 2017(Friendly, , 2019Friendly and Stiphany, 2019). The next section traces the rights dimension of social citizenship.…”