Architectures of Hope: Infrastructural Citizenship and Class Mobility in Brazil's Public Housing
Moisés Kopper, "Architectures of Hope: Infrastructural Citizenship and Class Mobility in Brazil's Public Housing"
English | ISBN: 047205564X | 2022 | 362 pages | PDF | 12 MB
English | ISBN: 047205564X | 2022 | 362 pages | PDF | 12 MB
Architectures of Hope examines how communal idealism, electoral politics, and low-income consumer markets made first-time homeownership a reality for millions of low-income Brazilians over the last ten years.
Drawing on a five-year-long ethnography among city planners, architects, street-level bureaucrats, politicians, market and bank representatives, community leaders, and past, present, and future beneficiaries, Moisés Kopper tells the story of how a group of grassroots housing activists rose from oblivion to build a model community. He explores the strategies set forth by housing activists as they waited and hoped for—and eventually secured—homeownership through Minha Casa Minha Vida’s public-private infrastructure. By showing how these efforts coalesced in Porto Alegre—Brazil’s once progressive hotspot—he interrogates the value systems and novel arrangements of power and market that underlie the country’s post-neoliberal project of modern and inclusive development.
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