PERIFERIAS URBANAS, REDES LOCAIS E MOVIMENTOS SOCIAIS EM FORTALEZA, CEARÁ

Abstract

This article discusses how social movements are constituted, particularly in the urban peripheries of large Brazilian cities, demonstrating the characteristics related to their foundation and/or essential for their continuity. To this end, lines of force or theoretical-empirical vectors are presented, which are the basis for the constitution and continuity of politically significant popular movements that are able to attain achievements both with and for their target public. The research focuses on the case of the Local Sustainable Development Network of Grande Bom Jardim (GBJ DLIS Network). The Grande Bom Jardim neighborhood on the periphery of the city of Fortaleza and is marked by violence, social vulnerability, and rights violations. However, since at least the 1980s, it has been home to active and varied popular movements. The data and analyses presented here were collected during a long-term insertion in the area, since 2004, and combine participant observation with an ethnographic bias with an emphasis on social cartography, document analysis, questionnaires and interviews. The results show that the GBJ DLIS Network has daily dynamics and practices capable of affirming creative tensions between tradition and innovation; the constitution of the territory as a political invention, linked to the networked social movement and the local, integrated and sustainable development agenda; and the repeated creation of reflective, interpretive and continuous skills to deal with the problematic situations experienced in urban daily life. These lines of force or theoretical-empirical vectors have been essential in the composition of significant political action and have socio-spatial implications on the scale of the territory and the city.