Anarchy in the SP

Every day I become a little more of a democratic anarchist.

Maybe it’s because I never hung out with people on Welfare in the U.S., but coming from a lefty big government crowd, I assumed that welfare was a great thing. Tax the rich and provide for the poor, it’s the best way to keep the ravages of capitalism in check.

But I do hang out with people in Brazilian slums, the recent recipients of billions of dollars worth of upgrading projects. Not welfare exactly, but still a big government scheme to, ostensibly, improve people’s lives. If only it were that simple. Here is what appears to happen in practice: the money goes to government employees and private companies who draw up plans for big construction projects. Hundreds of families get evicted to make way, and when lucky, they are sardine-ed into overpriced soviet-style public housing that, unlike their old homes, is not built to flexibly fit the needs of residents. Participation in the decision-making by residents is attempted but usually fails, so that government and private companies have the ultimate control over intimate aspects of poor peoples lives. It’s degrading and dehumanizing, and in a matter that is close to my heart, it is not democratic.

This happens all over the world. Poor people either get screwed without a thought, or they have to submit to dehumanizing and undemocratic philanthropy on the part of rich people, NGOs, and governments to meet basic needs. I get to buy filtered water if I don’t want to drink possibly contaminated water from the tap. A slum dweller has to submit to an interview from government officials in her home, two years of waiting, and finally a water-main installation project that displaces her neighbors before she can legally drink cleanish water out of her tap. Think about how that difference feels psychologically. It sucks.

Democracy means, or should mean, the idea that people should have control over the decisions and processes that affect their lives. And in a globalizing world this becomes more and more out of reach for all people, but especially the urban poor in “developing” countries. The answers we are generating to solve this are big-hearted international institutions (think the UN, multinational NGOs) to ameliorate the actions of big bad international actors (corporations and certain governments *cough* the U.S.). Side note: I don’t know how to classify the World Bank here- they seem to be in the middle of an identity-crisis between the two poles.

Perhaps the good and bad are not the problem, but size. Being BIG means something is too far from the people who matter to ever get it right, regardless of intentions. Small and anarchic is what we need, putting aside for a moment that I only have vague ideas what that might look like and not the faintest clue how it might be achieved.

Apartment Found

Moving into my apartment today! Was squatting on the floor of a fellow American researcher in hip Pinheiros, but I now live in an older building near the city center. My roommate is a 30 year old teacher who spent some time in Canada a few years back so she speaks English (though I will try really hard not to use it).

I am excited primarily because the place is so cheap. There are a few good reasons for this - it’s on the edge of a sketchy neighborhood, and there is no furniture - but it has the basics: close to the Metro and bus stations, has a kitchen and laundry, and hopefully internet too in the coming days. With the money I am saving I can invest in some furniture and perhaps a few excursions around Brazil.

The other reason why cheap rent was paramount – I ultimately plan to move further south or west of the city when the location of my fieldwork is solidified. Most people will not rent for the short term like this, so I have been promising 3 months rent regardless of whether I stay that long or not. And I can afford blowing an extra month of rent on a cheap place, which wouldn’t be the case otherwise.

Buenos Aires

(PHOTO CREDIT: Ralph Blessing, 2008)

Went to Buenos Aires, Argentina last week for a Fulbright regional conference. Unlike a good portion of American researchers in this neck of the globe, I do not have a background in Latin American studies, so it was a great chance to learn about all the countries of the Southern Cone vicariously through the projects of other grantees.

There are about 42 research grantees in the region this year (in Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina) with 25 different disciplines represented. Most of the week consisted of presenting our projects and sharing our experiences. This spurred some fruitful and enlightening conversations, cross-pollination in academic jargon, and one or two instances of “wait…what the hell is that guy’s project about? Something about ecosystem fragmentation, whatever that means…”

As a tourist, being in Buenos Aires felt a bit like catching royalty in the act of an embarrassing gaff. You see the mud on the dress from the fall out of the carriage, they know you see it, and despise you just a bit for it. Which is to say that urban Argentines, once residents of the uber-expensive “Paris of the South,” now have to stomach tourists from the likes of Uruguay and Brazil to support their economy after the financial crash of 2002. It is now one of the cheapest cities in the Southern Cone. Imagine, a top-notch steak dinner in a decadent Parisian-style building for the same price as a pizza in a modest Brazilian diner. It is a bit of an ego kill for the Europe of Latin America to find itself in this position. But I am not complaining, I got some great meals and a nice pair of jeans out of the trip.

More images from Argentina... a path at the estancia (ranch) where we rode horses.

(PHOTO CREDITS: Anne Sweet, 2008)

The last highlight is Tierra Santa: Parque Temático (literally “Holy Land Theme Park”). That’s right, an entire theme park dedicated to the life of Jesus Christ. Only Latin American Catholicism is theatrical enough to come up with this one (although the folks of Kentucky’s Creation Museum are giving them a run for their money). I laughed, I cried, I watched a 40 ft. tall mechanical Jesus rise from a fiberglass hillside to the tune of Handel’s Messiah- a process which repeats every ten-‘til-the-hour.

I could go on for days about this place - the reproduction of the creation with smoke and green rave lights, park staff dressed in a mix of “Middle Eastern” and Franciscan monk outfits (among other charming anachronisms), a random homage to Mahatma Gandhi, and belly dancing performances in a temple. Perhaps this last one was to portray the depravity right before Jesus would have thrown her kind out in a temple-cleansing rage? If you plan on going to Argentina, don’t miss this.

Fun with abstracts

So the date to submit paper proposals for LASA 2009 was yesterday (Latin American Studies Association Conference – this one in Rio de Janeiro, currently Dengue Fever capital). As I am still floundering about the city with the shreds of a research question stuck to the soles of my sneakers, I of course have no idea what my paper for this might actually entail.

But as I am totally pumped at the prospect of going to Rio (and who wouldn’t be?) - I did what I normally do when under the gun to write up a proposal: screw any sense of what a person in my position is capable of researching and make outlandish and unfounded claims about what I intend to prove. When caught with your pants down, you might as well put on a show, no?

Here is the write-up. Notice the complete lack of any methodology, scientific objectivity, or claim to evidence. But in my defense, LASA only allows a 50-70 word paper description so there is really no space for all of that. (For anyone familiar with it, you can also notice the heavy influence of Charles Tilly’s essay War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. You can thank Bo for that lead.)

Title of Proposed Paper: Of Democracy and Discipline: The Logic of Government Engagement in the Slums of São Paulo

Description of Paper: In this paper I attempt to explain the seemingly contradictory involvement of the Brazilian state in urban squatter communities (favelas) in the present day. On the one hand, the Brazilian state has dropped dictatorship-era expulsion strategies and is now spending millions of dollars on research and upgrading programs to improve favela quality of life. On the other hand, the state continues to tacitly support the use of indiscriminate and excessive police violence in these same communities, with police killings rising sharply in the post-authoritarian period. I argue that this seemingly contradictory approach is actually a rational carrot and stick strategy to subdue favelas and bring them under state control. The ultimate aim of this strategy is to protect elite citizen's material interests from the underclass, hence the sticks, but it is tempered by the constraints that democratic electoral politics place on elite action. These constraints have caused the mutation of broad state violence into individual instances of police brutality and the new reliance on carrots to purchase favela acquiescence to state sovereignty.

And if all this wasn’t enough, I turned the beast in a day late because of continued internet access problems. Thankfully it’s not the German Studies Association conference, so I hope I’ll be OK.

(Researchers) have only interpreted the world…

“Those who authentically commit themselves to the people must re-examine themselves constantly…. The man or woman who proclaims devotion to the cause of human liberation yet is unable to enter into communion with the people… is grievously self-deceived. The convert who approaches the people but… attempts to impose his ‘status’ remains nostalgic towards his origins [as a member of an oppressive class].”
-Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

My bumbling quest for THE research question is complicated by an identity crisis – what am I?

My official title is researcher, but this new hat sits awkwardly on my head. How do I reconcile this with my personal ethics and a longer history as “one devoted to the cause of human liberation”? Read the quote above and tell me how I am supposed to live up to this standard while at the same time produce academic work. Can it be done? Who has done it before? How would I do it in São Paulo?

I am only starting to get a taste for what being a researcher means, and the implications this could have on my work, my relations with people as I develop it, and what I will be in a position to produce. I can’t yet tell if they are implications I should welcome.

There are definite benefits to the researcher hat, don’t get me wrong. When I wave the Fulbright flag I get the time, attention, and help of powerful and well educated people who wouldn’t give me the time of day if I were, say, a random social justice activist (and foreign at that). Yet at the same time this relationship tends to force my thinking and communication into distinct boxes: they want to know my research question, methodology, and plans to proceed up front. I tend to get blank stares or a few confused questions when I start off any other way- traction only comes when I start speaking the academic language.

What I really want is a heart-to-heart with a Brazilian social justice academic who can share their experiences and insight, but one can’t expect to waltz into a random office and have this type of interaction within the first 15 minutes. It might take months to find this person and have this conversation.

Add this to the troubles I will soon have engaging favela residents, let alone academics, and my head is ready to explode.

The kicker? This is an identity I will be negotiating for the next 8 months, and perhaps the rest of my life if I continue academic pursuits. (Readers… your input would be appreciated, please consider a comment or e-mail!)

ATM Error Messages - a selection

“The operation cannot be realized on this machine”

“The card you inserted is not the same as the one used before”

“Reading error”

“Machine temporarily unable to process your request. Please try again later.”

“Operation cancelled”

“Please insert your card again” – repeated indefinitely

My personal favorite was going to the Bank of Brasil on Avendia Paulista (São Paulo’s version of 5th Avenue, where there is a bank every 5 feet) and not being able to make a payment with my MasterCard. I was sent through two different lines and assisted by 3 staff before they finally decided the bank was not capable of processing my card. Then I went down the street to the grocery store and bought a jug of water with the same card, no problem. Oh Brazil!

Brazilian Social Thought

Thanks to a meeting with one of the researchers at my affiliate I now have a 10-book tall stack of readings to peruse. And she got me excited about something I hadn’t yet considered – the importance of getting a taste for Brazilian social thought/criticism while here.

“It’s a little strange to us,” she said, “when foreign researchers come here to study housing, or social services, or poverty, but then their articles have bibliographies almost entirely in English.” That, or they only pull Portuguese language sources for their descriptions/data, but never touch the larger social theory that hasn’t been translated.

So a new goal is to buck this trend and make getting a taste for Brazilian social criticism a significant part of my time here. Aside from your stock Paulo Freire (whose Pedagogy of the Oppressed I am currently reading), the names on the top of the list are: Francisco de Oliveira, Gilberto Freyre, and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda. Heard of these? Me neither. But ask me again in 8 months!