Travelling abroad with a map of a made-in-the-USA neo-liberal city

Abstract

Can an analytic map crafted to describe and explain urban marginality in the USA serve as a guide for research in cities in other countries? I argue that to correctly diagnose the causes and consequences of urban marginality in cities around the globe demands grounded, historical analyses of specific cases. Historical analyses will reveal that repression of the poor not only takes different forms across contexts, it is also produced and legitimized through different mechanisms. Contextualized revisions to any general analytic map of urban marginality are an essential prerequisite to arriving at appropriate prescriptions for change.

Keywords:

• marginality
• militarization
• inequality
• citizenship
• Brazil
• historical explanation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mara Loveman

MARA LOVEMAN is Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley.