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    Plan détaillé Texte intégral Introduction The emergence of the urban reform movement : from zeis to prezeis (1979-1986) The struggle for the institutionalisation of the PREZEIS under centre-right coalitions (1987-2000) Attempts by the Workers’ Party to combine participatory and strategic planning (2001-2012) The decline of participation under the Brazilian Socialist Party (2012-2018) Conclusion Notes de bas de page Auteurs

    Vivre et construire le droit à la ville : expériences au Sud

    Ce livre est recensé par

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    Table des matières

    The Trajectory of the Right to the City in Recife, Brazil : From Belonging to Inclusion

    Sven Da Silva et Pieter De Vries

    p. 115-130

    Texte intégral Introduction The emergence of the urban reform movement : from zeis to prezeis (1979-1986) The struggle for the institutionalisation of the PREZEIS under centre-right coalitions (1987-2000) Attempts by the Workers’ Party to combine participatory and strategic planning (2001-2012) The decline of participation under the Brazilian Socialist Party (2012-2018) Conclusion Notes de bas de page Auteurs

    Texte intégral

    Introduction

    1In 1989, two years before his death, Henri Lefebvre published an essay in Le Monde in which he reflects on the urban condition. In this essay, he argues for the need to rethink the concept of “the right to the city” (hereafter the RTC), a concept he himself coined and that was central to his thinking.1 He was referring to forms of neoliberal globalisation in which the city becomes increasingly the object of financial speculation, depriving the popular classes of the means to enjoy it as their common habitat. The critical question posed by Lefebvre is whether we can still use the language of the RTC in a context where there is a marginalisation of inhabitants who share the use value of the city in comparison to those trying to realise its exchange value.2

    2Ironically, since the 1990s the RTC has grown very popular in policy circles worldwide, particularly in the South. It became a master signifier, capable of bringing together a variegated set of actors. It did so by assigning a common meaning to struggles and campaigns that might otherwise have been perceived as disparate and disconnected. The RTC has evolved as a broad framework for academics, activists and progressive policymakers and planners in developing urban agendas advocating participatory forms of urban governance to counter the negative impact of gentrification and the commoditisation of space formerly used by the poorer parts of the population.

    3In the process, the critical Marxist meaning of RTC was weakened, becoming an element in the discourse to find common ground for common struggles, quite unlike Lefebvre’s basic theoretical message when he insists on seeing the city, rather than the factory, as a site of class struggle and a possible locus for the construction of a socialist society. In his view the city was always divided by the existence of antagonistic class interests that manifested themselves through forms of spatial segregation. As we will see, the alignment of RTC to the real-existing conditions of progressive urban agendas was particularly important in Brazil where the RTC was enshrined in the City Statute in 2001. This provides a set of instruments to regulate the section on urban policy in the 1988 Constitution. However, due to the increasing role of the private sector in urban governance,3 some scholars and activists argue that the radical core of RTC has been softened and limits the opportunities to develop a progressive agenda to the advantage of the working classes.4 In addition, as argued by Abigail Friendly, evaluations are missing on the relation between the RTC as expressed in legislation on the one hand, and the practical on-the-ground implications, on the other.5

    4Drawing on this controversial debate, this chapter examines the relationship between the RTC and urban programmes designed to enhance the participatory and democratic content of urban public policy and administration in Recife (Brazil)6. Participatory planning provides a useful problem-space when it comes to the analysis of changing meanings and trajectory of the RTC frame. Recife played a pioneering role in the institutionalisation of the poor’s RTC at the end of the military dictatorship when a strong popular movement based on the needs and aspirations of slum dwellers first emerged. This movement was the basis for the emergence of the PREZEIS (Plan for Regulating Special Zones of Social Interest), an internationally acclaimed slum governance system designed to legalise and providing them with infrastructure. However, the PREZEIS has become a highly contested space since the operational style of social activists, community leaders, politicians, government officials, and urban planners are now strongly shaped by the claims of private developers who finance electoral campaigns. In a city with one of the highest real estate and land prices per square meter in Brazil, their aim is to open up protected low-income housing areas for land valorisation and beautification.7

    5We examine the RTC framework using Alain Badiou’s understanding of an ontological disjunction between inclusion and belonging.8 To align belonging (presentation) and inclusion (re-presentation) as much as possible to the benefit of the city as a whole, the state works towards the creation of inclusive governmental structures. However, the struggles of the urban poor living in slums to belong to the city, are in stark contrast with being resettled to its periphery.

    6We highlight an apparent shift in the use of RTC from belonging (people’s desire to be part of the city) towards inclusion (government’s will to remain in power). In other words, we show how the institutionalisation of the RTC, in the form of a range of inclusionary (re-presentative) mechanisms on different scales, ended up denying the progressive principles of the popular movement that fought for the recognition of slums, as belonging to the city. The institutionalisation of the RTC has thus favoured urban elites, disarticulating the combative politics of those who have historically been deprived of having a voice in the administration of the city.

    7Our analysis is mostly based on the existing literature and a review of documents, as numerous scholars have already described the history of participatory planning in Recife.9 This is also well-documented in material distributed by NGOs who supported the PREZEIS until 2005 after which their support declined sharply.10 The account of more recent developments is based on fieldwork by the first author with community leaders in the PREZEIS. Da Silva has conducted thirteen months of fieldwork in Recife of which two in 2014, three in 2017 and eight in 2018. The second author, De Vries has conducted research in Recife on a regular basis since 2005, focusing on slum upgrading projects in the city.

    8The trajectory of popular participation and the RTC in Brazil, and in Recife in particular is described in chronological order as follows. In the first section we document the emergence of the urban reform movement in Recife as part of the struggle against the dictatorship until 1986. In the second section we discuss the evolution of the PREZEIS after the multi-party coalition against the dictatorship fell apart and a series of centre-right coalitions ruled the city (1987-2000). In the third section we analyse the attempts by the Brazilian Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) to conciliate popular participation and elite-driven beautification projects (2001-2012). In the fourth, and final section, we document the decline of popular participation since the Brazilian Socialist Party came to power in 2002. In the conclusion, we reflect on the trajectory of participation in Recife through the Badiouan lens of belonging and inclusion.

    The emergence of the urban reform movement : from zeis to prezeis (1979-1986)

    9The 1960s saw the emergence of progressive politics anchored in the struggles of the subaltern classes for housing and land in response to elite-driven urban modernisation programmes. Nationwide there was intense mobilisation by several social movements around the grassroots reforms of the left-wing president João Goulart (Reformas de Base). These reforms included proposals for urban land reform, such as the expropriation of large pieces of unproductive land for redistribution to the local population. In Recife they were supported by the emergence of several Grassroots Ecclesial Communities (CEBs) of the progressive wing of the Catholic Church, inspired by Liberation Theology. From the perspective of the disjunction between belonging and inclusion this was a serious attempt to create forms of belonging that would break with the existing forms of exclusionary inclusion by empowering local neighbourhood associations. These reforms however could not out after the coup of 1964 that installed a military regime and that would last until 1985.

    10Urban reform movements emerged again when the military regime (1964-1985) initiated a process of democratic opening in the late 1970s. In the context of two oil shocks (1973 and 1979) that severely affected the Brazilian economy, in 1979 the military regime scheduled elections for state governor in 1982 and direct elections for city mayor in 1985. In 1973, when Recife’s municipal government was heavily in debt, Recife’s Urbanisation Company was created (hereafter URB). This autonomous urban management and planning agency had to engage with infrastructure works and to attract additional funding for urban development.

    11In 1975 and 1977 the URB had to deal with major floods in in Recife which exposed the existence of a “spectral set of people […] that neither belongs nor is included”.11 This “set of people” occupied mangrove areas and the military regime reacted by evicting them to the peripheries of the city. Yet, many returned to occupy the areas in the city centre. In addition, in the late 1970s, the Postgraduate Urban Development Programme at the Federal University of Pernambuco was created (hereafter MDU). Rather surprisingly, the MDU was funded by the World Bank as a programme to prepare professionals for dealing with the social effects of urban development programmes and projects.

    12In 1979, the Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Dom Hélder Câmara, founded the Justice and Peace Commission (CJP) to defend political prisoners and the rights of slum dwellers (favelados). In the same year, the young ex-state treasurer, Gustavo Krause,12 was appointed mayor of Recife (1979-1982) by Governor Marco Maciel of the military National Renewal Alliance (ARENA). Krause convinced the military regime that evicting the poor was not a viable option. He set up Community Planning Nucleus (NPC) in poor neighbourhoods, popularly referred to as barracões (large shacks) as field offices set up to help accompany the urbanisation process. They functioned as “social care centres” with doctors and engineers serving the communities.

    13Krause pledged that land titles would be granted to areas where there were “communities organised at the grassroots”. In this context, the 1980s witnessed the re-emergence of a large number of neighbourhood movements. Perceived as one of the most successful movements of this time was the No Man’s Land Movement (Movimento Terra de Ninguém) supported by the CPJ as they achieved the distribution of land titles for a large number of families in the north of Recife. In addition, the Grassroots Ecclesial Communities re-emerged. In 1982, they were influential during the National Conference of the Bishops of Brazil when they published a document entitled “Urban Land and Pastoral Action”. This document invoked the principle of the “social function of urban property” in its critique on land speculation in cities. This principle would later be used in Recife when drafting the PREZEIS law.

    14Recife legally recognised the existence of slums (favelas) for the first time in 1983 when a new zoning law (the Law on Land Use and Occupancy) divided the city into zones. This included the creation of 27 Special Zones of Social Interest (ZEIS), characterised as “spontaneously existing and consolidated housing settlements, where special urban norms are established, in the social interest of promoting their legal regularisation and their integration into the urban structure”. Yet, in order to regulate these “special urban norms” in ZEIS, representatives of a popular movement started to draft a law that would become known as the PREZEIS (Plan for Regulating Special Zones of Social Interest). The movement included community leaders, the Grassroots Ecclesial Communities, neighbourhood associations, CJP lawyers, students in the MDU, urban planners from the URB, together with NGOs such as the Federation for Social and Educational Assistance (FASE).13

    15At the same time that the PREZEIS law was being drafted in Recife, the National Urban Reform Movement (MNRU) was being developed in 1985 at the state level. The MNRU was preparing a popular amendment to be included in the 1988 Federal Constitution. They did so under the banner of a “RTC for All” which brought together diverse social actors, critical about the use of the city as a source of profit and who promoted popular participation. FASE, active in drafting the PREZEIS law, was also active in the MNRU, in particular defending the principle of the “social function of property”.

    16In Recife, during the 1985 mayoral elections, initial ideas for this popular law were presented by all candidates, including Jarbas Vasconcelos, who would be the first democratically elected mayor after the military regime. Jarbas Vasconcelos had associated himself with the Brazilian Socialist Party and set up a coalition of several leftist political factions to support his candidacy.14 He established strong links with slum community leaders and grassroots organisations, campaigning for a governmental administration that is transparent, decentralised, and based on popular participation. As part of his election campaign, he promised to support this popular law.

    17Early in 1986 a first draft PREZEIS law was ready, yet citizens had no right to directly submit a popular law to the City Council (Câmara de vereadores). The popular movement thus requested a public hearing with the mayor, Jarbas Vasconcelos. The movement had to hand him the law first, in order for it to pass to the City Council. During this public hearing Jarbas Vasconcelos accepted on the condition that local government experts evaluated the text before submitting the draft law to the City Council. At the end of 1986, the law was duly submitted to the City Council.

    18Later in 1986, Jarbas Vasconcelos introduced the Municipality in the Neighbourhood Programme (Programa Prefeitura nos Bairros). This was a decentralised urban development programme in which the mayor held office in low-income neighbourhoods on set days of the month. The programme aimed at creating a direct link between community leaders and the City Hall.15 More than a form of consultation, this was the start of a form of participatory planning in which the communities were invited to provide proposals for investments in infrastructure and services. The municipality visited the communities to inform them of how much money was available for them and the communities then debated what should be done with the resources. However, the municipality could not be held accountable in terms of budget or the execution of requested projects.

    The struggle for the institutionalisation of the PREZEIS under centre-right coalitions (1987-2000)

    19After much negotiation about the text in the City Council, in 1987, Jarbas Vasconcelos signed the Plan for the Regularisation of Special Zones of Social Interest (PREZEIS). The PREZEIS law aims to “make property adapt to its social function”. Amongst its twelve principles, it “prioritises the right to housing over the right of ownership”, it “prevents real estate speculation in ZEIS” and it “limits removals and resettlement to the minimum required”.

    20It differed from the Municipality in the Neighbourhood Programme in that it initiated the creation of a Special PREZEIS Fund. Each ZEIS would set up a Commission for Urbanisation and the Legalisation of Land Tenure (COMUL) responsible for discussing, applying, and monitoring the resources of this Special Fund. COMULs would be composed of 2 elected community members (community leaders), 1 representative of the Secretariat for Legal Affairs, 1 representative of URB, 1 representative of an NGO, 1 lawyer and 1 public agency representative. The community representatives were appointed by the community organisations that had requested the transformation of the area into ZEIS.

    21New elections for mayor took place again at the end of 1988. Perceiving the possible end of the PREZEIS if a new mayor was elected, several actors came together again to draft a new decree to create the PREZEIS Forum. Next to the COMULs, the Forum would act as a second deliberative instance. While the COMULs focus on the community level, the Forum would operate on a city level, bringing together all the COMULs, as well as URB, MDU, NGOs, government representatives, and social movement activists.

    22While this decree was being drafted, the MNRU was able to include an article in the Federal Constitution of 1988 which states that urban development policy should be “aimed at ordering the full development of the social functions of the city”, and defining that “social function” is performed when the Master Plan16 is adhered to. Thus, at the same time as COMULs were being installed as a primary deliberative instrument, the PREZEIS Forum and the urban Master Plan started receiving a more important role in defining the “social function of property”.

    23Jarbas Vasconcelos signed the PREZEIS Forum decree two weeks before the newly elected mayor, Joaquim Francisco Cavalcanti of the Liberal Front Party, took office (1989-1992). The attitude of the Liberal Front Party to the PREZEIS Forum has been characterised in terms of a “boycott”17. Besides the small number of COMULs set up,18 community representatives started being criticised for rarely coming up with proposals, only providing a critique of government agencies. Despite the many challenges faced by the Forum in its early years, in 1991 Recife’s Master Plan reaffirmed the PREZEIS as a legitimate deliberative instrument of urban politics. This was the result of a struggle for recognition and institutionalisation of the PREZEIS at the city level.

    24During Jarbas Vasconcelos’s second mandate (1993-1996), under the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, the Municipality in the Neighbourhoods Programme that had co-existed alongside with the PREZEIS, was transformed into a programme called Municipality in the Neighbourhoods/Participatory Budgeting. At a time when Brazil was experiencing a hyperinflation, the initial successes of the Workers’Party with Participatory Budgeting (PB) in Porto Alegre, initiated in 1989, inspired this transformation of the Municipality in the Neighbourhoods Programme.

    25At the same time, the PREZEIS law was being revised, particularly regarding the regulation of the Special PREZEIS Fund which was left undefined in the 1987 law. In September 1993, this led to a law on the Municipal Fund of PREZEIS according to which the Fund can consist of Municipal Budget funding, as well as donations and money from “rent” paid to use public land as established in the 1983 zoning law. The law also establishes that the Fund should have a specific account, controlled by the Recife Urbanisation Company (URB). Within the URB, simultaneously, a new structure was set up to provide basic services to ZEIS areas. The Directorate of Urban Integration (DIUR) was created within the URB to develop urbanisation plans together with the COMULs. In addition, three thematic chambers were instituted (Urbanisation, Legalisation and Budgeting) to support the PREZEIS Forum.

    26In 1994, the PREZEIS Forum obtained seats in two important official planning bodies. First, in the Urban Development Council which has deliberative powers in controlling the implementation of the Master Plan. Second, in Recife’s City Forum, a consultative arena in charge of discussing guidelines for the Municipal Budget.

    27These changes were incorporated in the new PREZEIS law, effective as of November 1995. The new law defined the PREZEIS Forum as the responsible agency of the Municipal PREZEISFund, whereas its role had previously been only consultative. Furthermore, the new law instituted direct elections within the community in order to elect two representatives and two substitutes for the COMUL. The COMULs were now composed of five members ; two elected representatives of the community, two representatives of the public authorities, and one community organisation representative to provide advice to the community.

    28The last step in formalising the PREZEIS was made when Mayor Roberto Magalhães of the rightist Liberal Front Party (1997-2000) signed two decrees that regulated the functioning of the PREZEIS Forum and the COMULs. However, this administration also meant a new period of attempts to boycott the Forum. A series of unguarded statements made by Roberto Magalhães during the run-up to the election opened the way for the Workers’ Party that had seen an increase in its electoral support at the national level, moving from the South towards the North East.

    Attempts by the Workers’ Party to combine participatory and strategic planning (2001-2012)

    29A new period for the PREZEIS was initiated when the newly elected mayor of the Workers’ Party, João Paulo Lima e Silva (2001-2004), turned the Municipality in the Neighbourhoods/Participatory Budgeting Programme into Participatory Budgeting (2001-2012), using slogans such as “inclusive development” and “reversal of priorities”. The Workers’ Party prioritised Participatory Budgeting over the PREZEIS as a means of steering away from the clientelistic politics that had flourished under past administrations. Instead of intermediation by elected community representatives, the Workers’ Party stressed direct individual involvement in urban politics. In addition, participatory budgeting was much broader than the PREZEIS, since it also dealt with health, education, sports and culture. Furthermore, participatory budgeting had more funds at its disposal than the PREZEIS Municipal Fund.19

    30While the Workers’Party had presented itself as the successor of the popular movement, the prioritisation of participatory budgeting over the PREZEIS was a significant blow for the latter. The PREZEIS was further weakened after an administrative reform implemented in 2005, during João Paulo’s second mandate (2005-2008). The reform left the PREZEIS without competent experts or a sufficient budget.20 While the URB remained the account holders of the Municipal PREZEIS Fund, the PREZEIS was transferred away from the URB to the secretariat responsible for participatory budgeting. The technical budgeting body that supports the PREZEIS Forum has also been affected by this reform, as it was merged with Urbanisation. Along the way the role of the budgeting body informally stopped functioning, making information about the financial situation of the PREZEIS invisible. In addition, activists who were important for the functioning of the PREZEIS when the Workers’Party was in the opposition now received jobs in the party administration, weakening the popular segment of the PREZEIS. Furthermore, the Directorate of Urban Integration (DIUR) at the URB was dismantled and consequently no further urban infrastructural plans for ZEIS were made within the COMULs.

    31In 2008 attempts were made to restructure the PREZEIS while discussing Recife’s Master Plan. Some proposals were dismissed, including the proposal to turn all low-income areas into a ZEIS. One of the proposals which was accepted, was the creation of a second type of ZEIS that would enable partnerships with the private sector. While the original ZEIS had been characterised as informal poor residential areas devoid of infrastructure and in need of land regularisation, ZEIS type 2 were defined as available public land to be provided with infrastructure and dedicated to social housing of families negatively affected by urbanisation projects.

    32At the same time as the Workers’ Party was experimenting with participatory budgeting, the party increasingly adopted a pro-business attitude vis-à-vis investors’ interests. Participatory planning including the poor in democratic forms of governance thus went along with a strategic planning approach aimed at creating a competitive World Class City targeted at high-income neighbourhoods.21 In this context, Recife experienced a strong push for construction driven by mega projects such as the Via Mangue (a major road through the mangrove area connecting the inner city with the sprawling southern part), along with the extravagant Rio Mar Shopping Mall. The coexistence of strategic and participatory planning was in itself not new. However, the Workers’ Party aimed to bring together the desires of the middle classes for a modern and beautified city and the aspirations of the poor to belong to the city. This, in fact, rejected the historical antagonism between the working or subaltern classes and the elites. However, the fantasy of class conciliation did not last long, as the increasing closeness between real estate interests and the Workers’ Party government left its mark in a series of corruption cases, which would become a very serious setback for the party.

    33When the Workers’ Party leadership in Brasília chose not to support Mayor João da Costa for re-election, many party cadres decided not to campaign for the official candidate, and silently hoped for the success of the rival candidate from the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB). Many community leaders within the PREZEIS withdrew their support for the Workers’ Party and switched to Geraldo Júlio of the Brazilian Socialist Party, public administrator and ex-secretary of state for economic development. This election came at the end of twelve years of Workers’Party hegemony.

    The decline of participation under the Brazilian Socialist Party (2012-2018)

    34In 2012 the Brazilian Socialist Party terminated the Participatory Budget, initiating its own participatory programme called Recife Participates. This is designed to facilitate dialogue between government, the private sector, community leaders and civil society organisations. Recife Participates also has a Forum which travels through the neighbourhoods, but which never got off the ground with community leaders complaining that it only exists on paper.

    35Furthermore, the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) continued the Workers’ Party policies of urban development, becoming a fierce advocate of the massive beautification project New Recife (Novo Recife) proposed under s Workers’ Party government. This is a socially and environmentally highly controversial project at the Estelita waterfront that includes the building of luxury residential towers, theatres and parks. When the country was embroiled in an economic and political crisis, a social movement named Occupy Estelita brought many people onto the streets in opposition to the Novo Recife project. Inspired by Occupy Wall Street and the nation-wide uprisings in June 201322 Occupy Estelita was perceived as one of the foremost RTC social movements in Brazil against gentrification and the breakdown of participatory structures.

    36Occupy Estelita was, however, mainly a middle-class environmentalist movement which had failed to obtain substantial support from the neighbouring slums. As Novo Recife is part of the PSB political programme, many community leaders have not openly expressed their discontent with the project within the PREZEIS Forum. More importantly, in contrast to the popular movements of the 1990s, Occupy Estelita was not a land occupation movement. Yet, the urban poor proceeded to occupy a vast tract of adjacent land owned by the Federal Railway Company, waiting for the project’s building work to begin. Subsequently the construction consortium became involved in the Workers’Party corruption scandals.

    37As these developments signal a return to the dominance of top-down urban planning, in 2013 the coordinators of the PREZEISForum presented a comprehensive report in which they reflect on the dismantling of the operational structure of PREZEIS during the past administrations, in particular on the financial situation and the administrative reforms in 2005. They submitted this document to the municipality, requesting that the structure with the URB be re-established. On the contrary, in 2014, by decree, the management of the PREZEIS Forum became linked to the Secretariat of Government and Social Participation, which was responsible for Participatory Budgeting. This decree thus converted the PREZEIS Forum into a support organ within the municipal participatory bureaucracy. It annulled the direct relation between the PREZEIS and the URB, leaving the URB alone as responsible for the execution of works on drainage, street paving and accessibility.

    38At the end of 2014 Mayor Geraldo Julio signed a “work package” guaranteeing an investment of the unprecedented amount of almost 20 million Reais for urbanisation in 11 ZEIS areas to be initiated in 2015. After a recession in 2015 and 2016 that ranks as the worst in Brazilian history, many community leaders in the PREZEIS claim that these works have not yet been initiated. Indeed, this amount of funding never reached the PREZEIS Municipal Fund. In times of economic crisis, between 2013 and 2018, only 7 new ZEIS have been set up, of which 5 of ZEIS type 2. In total there are now 74 ZEIS housing over half of Recife’s 1.6 million inhabitants. Of these only 39 have a COMUL installed, yet most of these COMULs are inactive, and the agenda for the PREZEIS Forum meetings are not decided on the basis of the challenges discussed within COMUL meetings.

    39In view of the continued lack of priority given to the PREZEIS within the urban governance system, it has become an arena of negotiation between social activists, community leaders, politicians, government officials and urban planners. Community leaders complain about the corruption of popular participation due to the weight of construction capital which has converted most PREZEIS community leaders into political campaigners. Their operational styles are strongly shaped by politicians and private developers who are now waiting for the economy to recover.

    Conclusion

    40Alain Badiou makes a useful distinction between “the situation” and the “state of the situation” ; in other words, two ways of counting people. The situation presents individuals and counts them as belonging to a given site, whereas the “state of the situation” re-presents the same individuals as members of given categories and counts them as part of a governmental system. Individuals are consequently represented in manifold ways, as citizens, as deserving or deviant members of society, and according to all sorts of criteria such as class, gender, etc.

    41Badiou argues that there is an excess of inclusion over belonging, and of re-presentation over presentation. Inclusion is always excessive with regard to belonging, and as such it creates slogans and categories of inclusion unconnected with forms of belonging.23 Inclusion is thus about including people as parts of representative structures and not as individuals per se, hence the need for democratic participatory structures. In what follows we reflect on the trajectory of the PREZEIS and the RTC through Badiou’s framework of belonging and inclusion.

    42In line with the inclusive city participation in Recife is a good example of the repudiation of the disconnection of inclusion and belonging, or the negation of the antagonistic character of the city. The disjunction between governmental legal programmes meant to include the city’s poor and their struggle to belong was never clearer than at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s. Recife witnessed high levels of popular mobilisation, driven by grassroots political energy in the slums. For electoral purposes the mayor and the military regime promoted the distribution of land titles and the total inclusion of slums within the city. This was a treacherous promise, meant to rob the popular movement of its voice in insisting on the fundamental disjunction between government promises of inclusion and the struggle for belonging.

    43In the initial years of the PREZEIS, besides differences in support by the different political parties for the participatory structure, there already existed a striking lack of importance conferred to the COMULs (commission for legalization and urbanization) while attempts were made to institutionalise the ZEIS as the areas in which to plan the informal city. Viewed from the lens of the disjunction between belonging and inclusion we see that the COMULs were not seen as part of urban politics, while on a higher level the PREZEIS Forum was supposed to become the representative of the poor in the participatory planning process. The disjunction between belonging and inclusion, as expressed in the differential relation of the City Hall vis-à-vis the COMULs and the PREZEIS Forum, would later become decisive in the paternalistic and clientelistic mode of operation of PREZEIS delegates.

    44The current situation shows what happens when the Left ends up believing in the chance to develop the RTC through inclusive development programmes. The trajectory of participation is exemplary of an ever-expanding rationality of government that is shedding the legacy of the popular movement, depoliticising social struggle, to the point of becoming an example of post-democratic, technocratic and media-dependent administration. The popular movement struggled for belonging, the right to live in the city, whereas participatory governmental programmes are meant to include the population within the state of the situation, the meta-structure. This situation describes the impasse of the PREZEIS from its outset.

    Notes de bas de page

    1 Merrifield Andy, “The Right to the City and Beyond : Notes on a Lefebvrian Re-Conceptualization”, in City, 15, Nos 3-4, 2011,p. 473-481.

    2 Kuymulu Mehmet BariŞ, “The Vortex of Rights : ‘Right to the City’at a Crossroads”, in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37, N° 3, 2013, p. 929.

    3 The increasing role of the private sector in urban governance was fostered by fiscal crises that demanded austerity in an increasingly competitive field. It is manifested in the generalisation of private-public partnerships in urban development projects.

    4 For example, Belda-Miquel Sergio, Peris Blanes Jordi and Frediani Alexandre, “Institutionalization and Depoliticization of the Right to the City : Changing Scenarios for Radical Social Movements”, in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40, n° 2, 2016, p. 321-339.

    5 Friendly Abigail, “The Right to the City : Theory and Practice in Brazil”, in Planning Theory & Practice, 14, n° 2, 2013, p. 159.

    6 Work on this chapter was carried out with the support of the European Research Council, under Grant 679614 (BROKERS).

    7 Carrière Jean-Paul and Hochart Karine, “Un développement urbain durable et socialement inclusif est-il possible dans le contexte de fragmentation sociospatiale des métropoles des pays émergents ? Réflexions à partir des cas de Recife (Brésil) et de Chennai (Inde)”, in Revista de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território, 1, n° 9, 2016.

    8 Theoretical Writings, London, Continuum, 2003 ; Badiou Alain, Being and Event, London, Continuum, 2005 ; Van Den Hemel Ernst, “Included but Not Belonging : Badiou and Ranciere on Human Rights”, 2008, in Krisis, journal for contemporary philosophy, issue 3, p. 16-30.

    9 de Melo Rocha Danielle, “Revisitando O Prezeis : Um Instrumento De Luta E Resistencia No Embate Entre O Planejamento Estrategico E O Direito a Cidade”, in Regimes Urbanos e governanca metropolitana, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, 2017 ; Montambeault Françoise, “Recife : From Clientelism to Disempowering Cooption”, in The Politics of Local Participatory Democracy in Latin America : Institutions, Actors, and Interactions, Montambeault Françoise (ed.), Stanford University Press, 2016 ; Koster Martijn, in Fear of Abandonment : Slum Life, Community Leaders and Politics in Recife, Brazil, vol. PhD, Wageningen University, Rural Development Sociology, 2009.

    10 FASE, CENDHEC, and URB, Prezeis : Manual Para Lideranças, Recife, 1997 ; CENDHEC, “Prezeis : A Luta Social Por Uma Política Urbana Inclusiva”, 2005.

    11 de Vries Pieter, “The Inconsistent City, Participatory Planning, and the Part of No Part in Recife, Brazil”, in Antipode, 48, n° 3, 2016, p. 7930.

    12 In 1980, after the dismantling of the two-party system, Krause shifted allegiance to the newly established Social Democratic Party (PDS).

    13 FASE was founded in 1961 and has since worked with farmworkers and emerging neighbourhood associations in northern Brazil.

    14 Vasconcelos, in 1980, was co-founder of the catch-all (pega-tudo) Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB later MDB). He had however lost elections within the PMDB to run for mayor. As a consequence, he associated himself with the PSB, yet returned to the PMDB after his mandate as mayor.

    15 Montambeault, “Recife : From Clientelism to Disempowering Cooption”. op. cit., p. 143.

    16 The Master Plan is a 10-year plan, compulsory for cities with over 20,000 inhabitants, which acts as the main instrument for urban development policy.

    17 CENDHEC, “Prezeis : A Luta Social Por Uma Política Urbana Inclusiva”, 2005 ; Da Silva Marina Lourenco, “Conflitos Urbanos Pelo Direito a Moradia Na Zeis Coque (Recife) : Das Estrategias De Expulsao E as Taticas De Resistencia Aos Grandes Projetos”, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, 2016 ; de Melo Rocha Danielle, “Revisitando O Prezeis : Um Instrumento De Luta E Resistencia No Embate Entre O Planejamento Estrategico E O Direito a Cidade”, in Regimes Urbanos e governanca metropolitana, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, 2017.

    18 Out of the 27 ZEIS areas instituted in the 1983 zoning law, 8 COMULs were installed in 1988, the first year of PREZEIS. In 1989, 7 more COMULS were installed. During the Liberal Front Party, between 1990 and 1993, only 2 new COMULs were installed.

    19 CENDHEC, “O Lugar Do Prezeis Na Política Urbana Do Recife”, Pacheco Alexandre (ed.) ; colaborador : André Araripe ; ilustração : Kellen Link, Recife, 2017.

    20 Gallart Romain and de la Mora Luis, “Le ‘droit à la ville’ à l’épreuve fe son institutionnalisation – Quel leitmotiv pour les habitants des quartiers populaires ?”, in O Direito à Cidade na França e no Brasil : uma nova agenda urbana ? Diálogos FR BR 4, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 2016.

    21 de vries Pieter, “Participatory Slum Upgrading as a Disjunctive Process in Recife, Brazil : Urban Coproduction and the Absent Ground of the City”, in Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 37, 2016 ; Melo Ana Maria, “Le Parti des Travailleurs gouverne la ville de Recife”, in Cahiers des Amérique Latines, 63, n° 64, 2010.

    22 A year before Brazil hosted the 2014 Football World Cup, the country’s population took to the streets outraged and dissatisfied with the shortage and poor quality of public services such as transport, health, education and public safety.

    23 A common slogan used by the Workers’ Party was the ‘inversion of priorities’ meaning that while in the past the ‘formal’ city had always been prioritised now the ‘informal’ poor city would be given preference. Planning documents were replete of concepts such ‘the inclusive city’ and eligibility criteria for participation in resettlement projects.

    Auteurs

    • Sven Da Silva


      Sociologue du développement, Wageningen University, Pays-Bas

    • Pieter De Vries


      Sociologue du développement, Département de Sciences Sociales, Wageningen University, Pays-Bas

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    L’accès à l’eau en Afrique

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    Métropoles en débat : (dé)constructions de la ville compétitive

    Antoine Le Blanc, Jean-Luc Piermay, Philippe Gervais-Lambony et al. (dir.)

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    Vivre et construire le droit à la ville : expériences au Sud

    Vivre et construire le droit à la ville : expériences au Sud

    La dimension politique des pratiques citadines

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    1 Merrifield Andy, “The Right to the City and Beyond : Notes on a Lefebvrian Re-Conceptualization”, in City, 15, Nos 3-4, 2011,p. 473-481.

    2 Kuymulu Mehmet BariŞ, “The Vortex of Rights : ‘Right to the City’at a Crossroads”, in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37, N° 3, 2013, p. 929.

    3 The increasing role of the private sector in urban governance was fostered by fiscal crises that demanded austerity in an increasingly competitive field. It is manifested in the generalisation of private-public partnerships in urban development projects.

    4 For example, Belda-Miquel Sergio, Peris Blanes Jordi and Frediani Alexandre, “Institutionalization and Depoliticization of the Right to the City : Changing Scenarios for Radical Social Movements”, in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40, n° 2, 2016, p. 321-339.

    5 Friendly Abigail, “The Right to the City : Theory and Practice in Brazil”, in Planning Theory & Practice, 14, n° 2, 2013, p. 159.

    6 Work on this chapter was carried out with the support of the European Research Council, under Grant 679614 (BROKERS).

    7 Carrière Jean-Paul and Hochart Karine, “Un développement urbain durable et socialement inclusif est-il possible dans le contexte de fragmentation sociospatiale des métropoles des pays émergents ? Réflexions à partir des cas de Recife (Brésil) et de Chennai (Inde)”, in Revista de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território, 1, n° 9, 2016.

    8 Theoretical Writings, London, Continuum, 2003 ; Badiou Alain, Being and Event, London, Continuum, 2005 ; Van Den Hemel Ernst, “Included but Not Belonging : Badiou and Ranciere on Human Rights”, 2008, in Krisis, journal for contemporary philosophy, issue 3, p. 16-30.

    9 de Melo Rocha Danielle, “Revisitando O Prezeis : Um Instrumento De Luta E Resistencia No Embate Entre O Planejamento Estrategico E O Direito a Cidade”, in Regimes Urbanos e governanca metropolitana, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, 2017 ; Montambeault Françoise, “Recife : From Clientelism to Disempowering Cooption”, in The Politics of Local Participatory Democracy in Latin America : Institutions, Actors, and Interactions, Montambeault Françoise (ed.), Stanford University Press, 2016 ; Koster Martijn, in Fear of Abandonment : Slum Life, Community Leaders and Politics in Recife, Brazil, vol. PhD, Wageningen University, Rural Development Sociology, 2009.

    10 FASE, CENDHEC, and URB, Prezeis : Manual Para Lideranças, Recife, 1997 ; CENDHEC, “Prezeis : A Luta Social Por Uma Política Urbana Inclusiva”, 2005.

    11 de Vries Pieter, “The Inconsistent City, Participatory Planning, and the Part of No Part in Recife, Brazil”, in Antipode, 48, n° 3, 2016, p. 7930.

    12 In 1980, after the dismantling of the two-party system, Krause shifted allegiance to the newly established Social Democratic Party (PDS).

    13 FASE was founded in 1961 and has since worked with farmworkers and emerging neighbourhood associations in northern Brazil.

    14 Vasconcelos, in 1980, was co-founder of the catch-all (pega-tudo) Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB later MDB). He had however lost elections within the PMDB to run for mayor. As a consequence, he associated himself with the PSB, yet returned to the PMDB after his mandate as mayor.

    15 Montambeault, “Recife : From Clientelism to Disempowering Cooption”. op. cit., p. 143.

    16 The Master Plan is a 10-year plan, compulsory for cities with over 20,000 inhabitants, which acts as the main instrument for urban development policy.

    17 CENDHEC, “Prezeis : A Luta Social Por Uma Política Urbana Inclusiva”, 2005 ; Da Silva Marina Lourenco, “Conflitos Urbanos Pelo Direito a Moradia Na Zeis Coque (Recife) : Das Estrategias De Expulsao E as Taticas De Resistencia Aos Grandes Projetos”, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, 2016 ; de Melo Rocha Danielle, “Revisitando O Prezeis : Um Instrumento De Luta E Resistencia No Embate Entre O Planejamento Estrategico E O Direito a Cidade”, in Regimes Urbanos e governanca metropolitana, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, 2017.

    18 Out of the 27 ZEIS areas instituted in the 1983 zoning law, 8 COMULs were installed in 1988, the first year of PREZEIS. In 1989, 7 more COMULS were installed. During the Liberal Front Party, between 1990 and 1993, only 2 new COMULs were installed.

    19 CENDHEC, “O Lugar Do Prezeis Na Política Urbana Do Recife”, Pacheco Alexandre (ed.) ; colaborador : André Araripe ; ilustração : Kellen Link, Recife, 2017.

    20 Gallart Romain and de la Mora Luis, “Le ‘droit à la ville’ à l’épreuve fe son institutionnalisation – Quel leitmotiv pour les habitants des quartiers populaires ?”, in O Direito à Cidade na França e no Brasil : uma nova agenda urbana ? Diálogos FR BR 4, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 2016.

    21 de vries Pieter, “Participatory Slum Upgrading as a Disjunctive Process in Recife, Brazil : Urban Coproduction and the Absent Ground of the City”, in Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 37, 2016 ; Melo Ana Maria, “Le Parti des Travailleurs gouverne la ville de Recife”, in Cahiers des Amérique Latines, 63, n° 64, 2010.

    22 A year before Brazil hosted the 2014 Football World Cup, the country’s population took to the streets outraged and dissatisfied with the shortage and poor quality of public services such as transport, health, education and public safety.

    23 A common slogan used by the Workers’ Party was the ‘inversion of priorities’ meaning that while in the past the ‘formal’ city had always been prioritised now the ‘informal’ poor city would be given preference. Planning documents were replete of concepts such ‘the inclusive city’ and eligibility criteria for participation in resettlement projects.

    Vivre et construire le droit à la ville : expériences au Sud

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    Da Silva, S., & De Vries, P. (2020). The Trajectory of the Right to the City in Recife, Brazil : From Belonging to Inclusion. In A. Spire & M. Morange (éds.), Vivre et construire le droit à la ville : expériences au Sud. Nanterre: Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pupo.19885
    Da Silva, Sven, et Pieter De Vries. « The Trajectory of the Right to the City in Recife, Brazil : From Belonging to Inclusion ». In Vivre Et Construire Le Droit à La ville : Expériences Au Sud, édité par Amandine Spire et Marianne Morange. Nanterre: Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2020. doi:10.4000/books.pupo.19885.
    Da Silva, Sven, et Pieter De Vries. « The Trajectory of the Right to the City in Recife, Brazil : From Belonging to Inclusion ». Vivre Et Construire Le Droit à La ville : Expériences Au Sud, édité par Amandine Spire et Marianne Morange, Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pupo.19885.

    Référence numérique du livre

    Format

    Spire, A., & Morange, M. (éds.). (2020). Vivre et construire le droit à la ville : expériences au Sud. Nanterre: Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pupo.19735
    Spire, Amandine, et Marianne Morange, éd. Vivre et construire le droit à la ville : expériences au Sud. Nanterre: Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2020. doi:10.4000/books.pupo.19735.
    Spire, Amandine, et Marianne Morange, éditeurs. Vivre et construire le droit à la ville : expériences au Sud. Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pupo.19735.
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