Narrativas sócio-espaciais do bairro São Francisco

Abstract

The discussion brought by this dissertation mainly concerns the production of the São Francisco neighborhood’s space, in São Luís, Maranhão, under the perspective of its inhabitants’ narra-tives, as they were interviewed during thefield research. The urban planning initiatives, that took place in São Luís throughout the 1950s, designated that space, by that time classified as a settlement, apart from the city, as the place for expanding São Luís ́ limits, embedding urban plans, and public construction works with ideals of progress and modernity, and also with the concept of surpassing São Luís’ historical center, the foundational core of the city, characterizing it as the ‘old city’ in opposition to the ‘newcity’ that was to be founded. This new city was sup-posed to be inaugurated by the construction of a bridge over the Anil river, connecting the his-torical center to the soon to be São Francisco neighborhood. This plan, however, was both jus-tified and basedon the claim that such space was a void ready to be filled with middle and upper classes housing and public spaces that could embody the ideals of the current dictatorial gov-ernment in Brazil, when in fact, the basis of this whole discourse was the invisibility of a different way of living, especially connected to activities such as fishing, that was conceived as non-legit-imate. In the present time, the space of São Francisco is the place where two ways of living, very distinct from each other, coexist. The one inhabited by the middle class, the other, the place of the lower classes. Between them, issues concerning social and spatial segregation, urban vio-lence and insecurity and the very concept of city, as expressed by opposition to São Luís’ center, or comparison with nearby neighborhoods.