Slum politics: Community leaders, everyday needs, and utopian aspirations in Recife, Brazil

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Slum politics: Community leaders, everyday needs,and utopian aspirations in Recife, Brazil

Martijn Koster and Pieter A. de Vries

Abstract: This article envisages slum dwellers politics in Recife, Brazil as a realmof possibility in which care and recognition are central. Community leaders are itsmain facilitators as articulators of slum dwellers needs and aspirations. The arti-cles notion of slum politics is an elaboration of Chatterjees (2004) ideas on popu-

lar politics as a politics of the governed. Yet the article critiques the govern-mentality perspective for its inability to envisage a politics of hope and possibility.It distinguishes among slum politics, governmental politics (projects and programs),and electoral politics (voting), which are entwined and interdependent, but differ-ent. Zooming in on a community leaders urban agriculture project, the article ar-gues that this project, which from an outsiders perspective may be considerednon-viable, provided slum dwellers with possibilities to strive for community sol-idarity and personal recognition. Slum politics, the article concludes, is aboutclaiming the right to be counted and recognized, and about the care for the other.

Keywords: Brazil, community leaders, governmentality, popular politics, slums(favelas)

Understanding slum politics

In this article we elaborate on the idea that slum

dwellers engage in a kind of politics that opensup to a realm of possibility, outside the control-ling practices of governmentality. Althoughtheir politics and its consequences are often of aseemingly ephemeral and provisional nature,due to the precarious circumstances of life inthe slum, we argue that it is pivotal in creating asense of community and catering to aspirations

to be recognized as full human beings (Boffand Boff 1987: 8). Through an ethnographiccase, we set out to show that slums can be the

terrains of a politics of possibility. We departfrom a tendency, present in popular media andmuch academic literature, to see slum dwellersas victims of a clientelist political system, im-pelled to sell their votes to manipulative politi-cians in return for favors. Within this view theslum is a domain of a populist politics with nospace for reflection about the kinds of commu-

FocaalJournal of Global and Historical Anthropology62 (2012): 8398doi:10.3167/fcl.2012.620107


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nities that slum dwellers would like to con-struct. In doing so, we also critique ways of the-orizing about governmentality that providelittle possibilities for imagining radically differ-

ent worlds.In the context of Brazil, a number of works

(Gay 1994; Herkenhoff 1995; Magalhes 1998;Nielsen 2002; Pandolfi and Grynszpan 2003) ispositive about the internal dynamics of slumpolitics while focusing on the capacity of localleaders to engage with the political system, andto reach outcomes that benefit the communityas a whole, such as public works and social in-vestment. Yet the basic assumption remains thatslum dwellers engage in politics to take advan-tage of opportunities offered by the politicalsystem in return for votes and other forms ofsupport. The problem with this assumption, weargue, is that it keeps to a middle- and upper-class point of view in which politics in the slumis narrowed down to slum dwellers participa-

tion in governmental programs, responses toexternal interventions, involvement in politicalparties, and electoral campaigns, or clientelism.

Although the politics of slum dwellers is en-twined with governmental and electoral politicsand clientelism, we argue that it comprises muchmore, and cannot be understood according tothe logics inherent in externalistor scholastic(Auyero 2000; Bourdieu 1990)conceptualiza-

tions. Slum politics is, as we show, about organ-izing life in a broad sense, ranging from familylife, to making a living, to dreaming about thefuture. It contains a wider realm of practices thanwhat is usually referred to as the political proc-ess with its specific and professional skills.

We contend that we need to look at the log-ics of slum politics from the perspectives ofslum dwellers. The main protagonists of slum

politics are local community leaders who artic-ulate the needs and aspirations of other slumdwellers, while competing with each other fortheir support. We zoom in on Cho de Estrelas(henceforth Cho) in Recife, NortheasternBrazil, the slum where we conducted research.1

By studying an urban agricultural project coor-dinated by a community leader in Cho, we

elaborate on what slum politics is about. Before

doing so, we discuss the similarities betweenour notion of slum politics and what Chatterjee(2004) denominates popular politics, and thedistinction among slum politics, governmental

politics, and electoral politics.

Popular politics andgovernmental politics

Chatterjees The politics of the governed (2004)focuses on the politics of poor people, under-stood not as pre-political or backward but as apolitics with its own parameters and logics. Heargues that popular politics does not necessar-ily presume any particular institutional formalthough it is often conditioned by the func-tions and activities of modern governmentalsystems that have now become part of the ex-pected functions of government anywhere(Chatterjee 2004: 3). Popular politics should be

seen as contrary mobilisations that may havetransformative effects among the suppos-edly unenlightened sections of the population,consisting of those who are not proper mem-bers of civil society and are not regarded as suchby the institutions of the state but stand in apolitical relation with the state as populationswithin the territorial jurisdiction of the state(ibid.: 49, 38). In order to obtain resources from

the government, the poor have to negotiate andapply pressure in the right places, which wouldfrequently mean the bending or stretching ofrules, because existing procedures have histori-cally worked to exclude or marginalize them(ibid.: 66). The poor have expanded theirfreedoms by using means that are not availableto them in civil society (ibid.: 67). One of Chat-terjees examples is that of associations in squat-ter settlements that, according to state law, areillegal and do not officially exist. Chatterjee ar-gues that this paralegality is not some patho-logical condition of retarded modernity, butrather part of the very process of the historicalconstitution of modernity in most of the world(ibid.: 75). Those who are not considered propercitizens cannot enter civil society, but they do

enter political society: the terrain of the het-

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erogeneous social, where multiple and flexiblepolicies [are] put into operation, producingmultiple and strategic responses from popula-tion groups seeking to adapt to, cope with, or

make use of these policies (ibid.: 137).Popular politics, in this view, takes place out-

side civil society and is a response to the statesincapacity to produce proper citizens. Chatter-jee relies on the Foucauldian tradition of gov-ernmentality studies to argue that there is ahuge gap between the lofty political imaginaryof popular sovereignty and the mundane ad-ministrative reality of governmentality (2004:36). Central to this latter concept are the prac-tices by which government officials problematizethe life conditions of subordinated populationsto design specified forms of intervention. Gov-ernmentality, as the mentality of governing,however, is not merely about management ofpopulations, but also about the constitution of arealm of the social through practices of prob-

lematization that build on knowledge produc-tion techniques such as categorization, classifi-cation, labeling, segmentation, etc. (Vries 2005:98). Governmentality studies are good at high-lighting the capacity of governmental actors toproblematize and represent the life conditionsof subordinated populationsthe subjects ofgovernmentalityin such a way that they areamenable to be improved (Li Murray 2007;

Redfield 2005). Yet they tell us little about theways in which these populations construct sub-jectivities by drawing on the slum as a specificway of life.

Chatterjee refines governmentality studiesby arguing that governmentality in post-colo-nial societies did not follow the European path,conceiving the social as being composed of in-dividual citizens with rights and obligations

(and members of a national community), but assubjects sharing specific (pre-modern) charac-teristics. The reason for this is that techniquesof government in post-colonial states relied oncolonial ethnographic concepts such as casteand religion in India, ethnic groups in South-east Asia and tribes in Africa, to which wemay add the concepts of native and slave

populations in the Americas. Thus, while Eu-

rope produced citizen-subjects, post-colonialsocieties produced populations that had to begoverned according to policies defined largelyby the interests of political economy.

After independence in most of the ThirdWorld the discourse of citizenship and democ-racy caught on and the educated came to seethemselves as citizens, as being part of civil so-ciety. This was not the situation of the majorityof the people, who, given their condition asnon-modern, were targeted as populations ex-hibiting popular needs. Governmental politicsis a way of catering to these popular needswhich, as Chatterjee asserts, in turn gives rise tothe paralegality of popular politics. Conceptssuch as civil society, modernization, and humanrights are discontinuous with the everyday real-ity of popular politics in post-colonial societies.In other words, there is a constitutive disjunc-ture between the intentions of enlightened elitesto create rights-bearing citizens and the politi-

cal realities of the post-colony. The point to bestressed, however, is that popular politics, beingcontemporaneous with governmental politics,is not less modern than citizenship politics. Itdiffers only in being a politics of the poor.

But what does Chatterjee mean when assert-ing that popular politics is a politics of the poor,as against a politics of the educated or the en-lightened? Chatterjee is not very explicit about

this. The poor, in his view, remain an undefinedcategory and popular politics a side effect of(post-)colonial governmentality, a politicsemerging out of the developmental policies ofgovernment aimed at specific populationgroups that transgresses the strict boundariesof governmental policy (2004: 40). He definespolitical society as a site of negotiation andcontestation opened up by the activities of gov-

ernmental agencies aimed at population groupsand located in relation to the legal-politicalforms of the modern state itself (ibid.: 74). Pop-ular politics, in this view, follows different strat-egies ranging from accommodation to trans-gression, yet always remains a derivative kind ofpolitics, as it needs to have an engagement withthe apparatus of governmentality (ibid.: 64). In

our view a different conceptualization of popu-

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lar politics is required, one that emphasizes itspurposefulness and utopian potential, in otherwords, a politics of possibility.

We propose to see popular politics as arising

out of the diversity of life conditions, needs, de-sires, and modes of becoming of the poor. Tothat end, we define the poor as all those in-serted in the mechanism of social productionwithout respect to rank or property, in all theirdiversity, animated by an open and plural pro-duction of subjectivity (Hardt and Negri 2009:45). This is not the common definition of thepoor in terms of lack (of resources, access orpossibilities), but one that foregrounds the het-erogeneity of life experiences and their expres-sion in defined subjectivities. Following Rancire(1999), we see the poor as those who are part ofsociety but are excluded from its management.Politics, according to Rancire, comes into be-ing when the part of society that has no prop-erly defined place within it raises its voice and

demands to be recognized. Popular politics inthis view is not derivative but foundational ofpolitics in general, and governmental politics inparticular. Governmentality, then, can be rede-fined as consisting of an assemblage of tech-nologies of rule whose ultimate function is thatof masking the enlightened elites incapacity todeal with the heterogeneous desires and demandsof those who are excluded from the manage-

ment of society (Vries 2007).This enables us to expand Chatterjees notion

of popular politics by paying attention to theways in which slum dwellers construct subjec-tivities, and thus modes of agency that are notsimply restricted to making a living and takingadvantage of governmental programs, or whatwould amount to a politics of survival. Govern-mental politics is about representing, managing,

and governing populations, while slum politicsis about claiming the right to be counted, to berecognized, and about the care for the other.The essence of slum politics, in short, is not ac-cepting the terms of power that governmentalpolitics imposes. This, we believe, points to apolitics of possibility that runs against the pro-grams and agendas of governmental elites. Next,

we set out to show how slum politics can be

conceptualized from the perspective of poorpeople. We do this by turning the tables aroundand privileging the ontological horizon of slumpolitics.

Slum politics as a politics of possibility

Chatterjee has a clear political agenda as hewishes to convince non-governmental organi-zations (NGOs), political activists, and politicaltheorists of the importance of focusing on howpoor peoples political aspirations and claimsare shaped around common issues such as ac-cess to public services and basic livelihood con-ditions. It should be noted that governmentalpolitics in his view encompasses a wide realm ofinterventions, including those of NGOs and in-ternational institutions such as the World Bank.Governmental politics, thus, gives rise to a vividrealm of popular political activity and Chatter-

jees argument is that this should be a key ter-rain in the construction of effective practices ofdemocratic representations. The challenge thenwould be to democratize governmental politicsby drawing on notions derived from popularpolitics, instead of educating the populace tobecome modern citizens.

Chatterjee surely recognizes the potential ofpopular politics as a politics of possibility. Yet,

as said, he does not explore this topic because ofhis privileging of governmental politics and hislack of attention for the heterogeneous life forms,desires, and diverse subjectivities of the poor.Alternatively, we argue that slum politics is basedon the awareness of not being counted, of notbeing a part of society, of not being proper citi-zens. Still it would be wrong to see such aware-ness as expressing a desire to be part of civil

society and to become a proper citizen. Follow-ing Hardt and Negri (2009), we can argue thatwhat the poor share is not lack, but rather thelacking of lack; they are free from the notionsof lack and deprivation that animate the work-ings of governmentality. In other words, thepoor are free from the institutional foundationsof civil society: property and the detailed appa-

ratus of governmental rules to which citizens are



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subjected. As such, slum politics is about pro-ducing subjectivities based on the recognitionof being the part of no part; in other words,the part that has no defined place in society and

that demands to be recognized as such. As Ran-cire (1999) puts it, politics comes into beingwhen the part of no part manifests itself,hence exhibiting societys deep contradictions.

Thus, what at first sight may look like a neg-ative state can be seen as a point of departure.Slum politics emerges from a certain freedomthat offers possibilities for constructing a differ-ent kind of world. That is why issues of belong-ing, recognition, solidarity, and care are socentral to its workings. Finally, it would be wrongto envisage slum politics in a reactive way, asa form of resistance or transgression, for thiswould mean accepting the primacy of govern-mentality in shaping the political terrain. This isthe reason why slum politics, from the view-point of the enlightened, so often seems irra-

tional and inconsequential.Although slum politics inhabits a separateworld from that of governmental politics thetwo, as argued, are intricately entwined. Slumpolitics comprises manifold practices that coin-cide with governmental politics or take place inits shadows. These practices include making useof state institutions and agencies, laying claimto social security and pensions, and participat-

ing in governmental and non-governmental pro-grams with objectives that vary from improvinginfrastructure to enhancing security, and fromsupporting cultural expressions to building cit-izenship. As such, our view shows similarities tothe insurgent citizenship, described by Hol-ston (2008), where marginalized groupsinHolstons study the working class in So Paulodemand recognition. A difference, however, is

that slum politics is not so much concernedwith any institutionalized discourse of citizen-ship and rights, but creates its own spaces partlyindependent from dominant discourses.

It is apposite to compare our view on slumpolitics with the politics Das and Poole have inmind when they point at alternative forms ofeconomic and political action which are insti-

tuted in the margins and simultaneously criti-

cize and regenerate the system (2004: 19). Theyargue that the workings of the state becomemost apparent in the margins, where both itsfundamental violence and its spectacular enjoy-

ments and attractions are experienced. Accord-ing to them, the state, as a locus of control, isreconstituted through both the fear of thosewho, living in the margins, experience state vi-olence, and their creative ways of dealing withstate institutions. We disagree with Das andPooles notion of resistance as being functionalto the workings of domination, next to beingproductive in creating new realities. In contrastto their view, in which the political order is per-petually being regenerated in the margins, ourpurpose is to show the potential of the marginsas a realm of possibility. We recognize thatthings could be otherwise politically, based onthe recognition that they are already otherwisediscursively and empirically (Gibson-Graham2005: 142).

Slum politics and electoral politics

Much of the critique leveled against slums asterrains of political corruption is concerned withelectoral politics, when community leaders of-fer their services to party politicians as politicalbrokers. Electoral politics, however, is also a spec-

tacular politics, when politicians visit the slum,distribute T-shirts and other paraphernalia, makebig promises, and hold rallies and festivities.Electoral politics drives around the promises ofjobs, social services, and infrastructure, and mak-ing an extra income through campaigning.

The residents of Cho often drew on contra-dictory registers to conceive of electoral poli-tics: it is lauded for its ability to provide prestige

and access to resources and simultaneously crit-icized for its unreliable and selfish character(Goldman 2001). On the one hand, they wereattracted by electoral politics image of opulenceand opportunities. On the other hand, they dis-trusted involvement in it, as it tends to margin-alize community issues in favor of assumingand maintaining public positions and making

money through political campaigning.



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The term electoral politics, in the way we useit, comprises all practices that are in some wayinstrumental for getting votes, assuming or main-taining public positions, and making money as

such. It corresponds to a certain extent withparty politics, but is not limited to boundariesbetween, or competition within, parties. Al-though fundamentally different, electoral polit-ical practices partly overlap with slum politics.Elections can be seen as critical events in whichthis overlap increases. When politicians cometo the slum with deals and promises, electoralpolitics penetrates into the realm of slum poli-tics. The needs and aspirations expressed byslum dwellers findat least a partial and tem-poralfulfillment in material and social re-sources distributed through the channels ofelectoral politics. However, as these channelsare short-lived and unreliable, nothing is guar-anteed in the long term.

It is relevant to refer to Auyeros work (2000,

2001) on political brokers as problem solvers inwhat he calls poor peoples politics. Auyero ex-plains the reproduction of Peronism as an ide-ology of the poor in Argentina in times inwhich the Peronist party had espoused neo-lib-eralism and dismantled welfare provisions.Rather than seeing clientelism as a natural out-come of governmental politicsthe exchangeof votes for aidhe pays attention to the role of

political brokers in creating representations ofPeronism within close networks of recipients ofgovernmental aid. In his view, brokers articulateidioms to represent the needs and aspirations ofslum dwellers by drawing on the political mem-ory of Peronism. Auyero shows how such a pol-itics of care and remembrance is manipulatedfor ideological reasons. The difference betweenAuyeros analysis and ours is that in our case

community leaders are divided between theircommitment to the slum and to political pa-trons. In other words, they participate in twoentwined, yet different, kinds of politics: elec-toral politics and slum politics. Auyero does notmake this distinction. Our view of poor peoplespolitics is therefore more optimistic than his, aswe see it as a politics of hope and possibility.

The slum and its leaders

Not all slum dwellers in Cho are equally en-gaged in slum politics. As we already suggested,

the community leaders are its main facilitatorsand articulators. The term community leader inthe urban context of Recife refers to a sociallyand politically active, well-known person fromone of the many poor neighborhoods. The termis not applied to individuals appointed to par-ticular functions, but to persons with particularlife histories and characteristics. It is a severelyfought for position, one for which a reputationhas to be cultivated. Community leaders areknown to make efforts for the community, dopersonal favors for people, and thoroughly knowthe communitys history and current problems.Community leaders gather and circulate infor-mation, organize activities and attempt to im-prove the neighborhood. Especially the poorest,unemployed, residents of the community are at-

tracted to their activities, as they have mosttime and hope for possible benefits. Commu-nity leaders have a social network that extendsbeyond borders of class or place and have a tal-ent for maintaining their contacts (Koster 2009).The community leaders we studied in Recife dif-fer from the prevalent image of the informal ur-ban leader who is engaged in the underworld,an image that suits many community leaders in

Rio de Janeiro (Alvito 2001; Arias 2006; Gold-stein 2003) and urban leaders in other parts ofthe world (e.g., Barker 2009).

In Cho, the concept of community leaderwas frequently subject to dispute. Slum dwellersquarreled about who was a good communityleader and leaders blamed each other for notmeeting the necessary requirements. Commu-nity leaders often assume formal positions. They

are presidents of local grassroots organizations,representatives in local consultative bodies, orspokespersons of social movements (Assies1999; Silva 2000; Fontes 1999; Herkenhoff 1995;Nielsen 2002; Pandolfi and Grynszpan 2003;Queiroz 1999). Cho has many community or-ganizations, including a Residents Association,a Residents Union, a Health Group, a Mothers



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Club, NGOs that work with cultural expressionor environmentalism, and a squatter council.However, the social basis of community leadersdoes not lie in formal organizations, but in the

complex sets of social relations and culturalrepresentations that constitute life in slums.Thus we focus our attention on the practices ofindividual community leaders and other slumdwellers.

Cho has nine community leaders who arerecognized as such by slum dwellers, threewomen and six men. The older leaders rely onclaims of many achievements in the commu-nity, while younger ones put on a spurt to estab-lish their reputation. Each leader has a par-ticular operational style and specific thematicinterests: environmental degradation, wastecollection, food aid, health, income generation,motherhood, amusement, youth, security, andother issues deemed important in the slum.Some leaders dedicate their time to the execu-

tion of governmental projects in the neighbor-hood, while others set out to realize projectsthey designed with fellow slum dwellers, likethe urban agriculture project that we come topresent. Some activities involve direct materialbenefits (food, money) while others are cen-tered on remembering the past and ponderingabout the future. Relations among communityleaders are characterized by competition and

cooperation, as they strive to establish a nichefor themselves within the community. Becom-ing a community leader depends on the capac-ity to develop a reputation as a good com-munity representative and to establish a widenetwork of contacts with governmental agen-cies and politicians. In fact, presuming to havelinks to important people is central in their per-formance. None of the leaders is rigidly devoted

to any particular party. Among communityleaders there is envy and criticism about oppor-tunistic behavior and unwillingness to share in-formation. Yet they also establish alliances witheach other in order to gain certain positions(like in the squatter council), or to show thatthey are, as a group, the legitimate communityrepresentatives.

Their thematic specialization does not onlydistinguish the leaders from one another, butalso enables them to establish valuable connec-tions around specific issues with politicians and

officials of different public bodies, NGO work-ers, and private entrepreneurs. Such connec-tions offer them personal advantages critical fortheir survival. These vary from monthlysalaries, to stipends for attending meetings andjoining governmental programs, to food aid ormaterials. In return, community leaders pro-vide practical and political forms of support tothese outsiders such as organizing workshopsor events, coordinating implementation of ahealth or cultural project, or participating in apolitical campaign. In the slum, they are recog-nized as a gate to the offices. Fellow slumdwellers come to them in order to ask for guid-ance in the labyrinthine bureaucracy and for fa-vors that leaders can possibly derive from theircontacts.

It would be wrong to assume that commu-nity leaders only exist for the need of govern-mental agencies to create reliable interlocutorswithin the slum. It is rather the other wayround. The slum produces an array of leaderswho come to represent a variety of aspirationsand needs, thus standing for the slums internaldiversity. Community leaders are sought bygovernmental and non-governmental agencies

and politicians, not only because they provide alink to the slum, but because they have a visionabout its problems and provide a type of knowl-edge about the slum that is not available to gov-ernmental politics. The envy and criticismamong community leaders is not so much aboutthe monopolization of connections with out-siders, but emerges from the continuous neces-sity to compete for the support of slum dwellers.

Community leaders are put in a dilemma,when articulating slum dwellers needs and as-pirations, while establishing relations of mutualdependence with resourceful outsiders. On theone hand, they must maintain a reputation ofindependence and commitment to the locality;on the other hand, they are dependent on out-siders in order to make a living. This entails



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problems of accountability because in the eyesof their fellow slum dwellers they ought to workfor the community and not for themselves. Assuch, they are divided between unconditional

love for the community and personal gain.In the realm of governmental politics, com-

munity leaders are commonly treated as a synec-doche for their neighborhood. This is related totheir position as an important bridge betweentheir community and the world outside the slumand the formal positions they often assume.

In the realm of electoral politics, communityleaders are treated as political brokers. A com-mon complaint among leftist academics is thatslum dwellers politics relies on patron-clientrelationships in which assumed leaders offertheir services to political patrons in return forfinancial benefits. In this view, the project ofdemocratization and the development of civilsociety institutions are hampered by the persist-ence of a political culture characterized by

clientelistic dependency, opportunism, and au-thoritarianism (Baiocchi 2003). Within thisview, the language of community leadership isone of ideological mystification as such leadersfalsely project themselves as community repre-sentatives, while being paid to serve externalpolitical interests. Such views fail to see thatslum politics exhibits a logic of its own that can-not be grasped by the language of citizenship

and nation-state making. This is not to say thatslum dwellers do not have their political imagi-naries, but these do not coincide with those ofthe enlightened classes. Notions such as com-munity solidarity, social justice, and the strivingfor recognition resonate much more with slumdwellers life worlds than abstract concepts suchas democracy and civil society. Communityleaders play an important role in articulating

such political imaginaries, while showing theircapacity to represent slum dwellers needs andaspirations vis--vis outsiders.

The community of Cho de Estrelas

Recife has traditionally been the destination of

large flows of migrants from the arid areas of

the Brazilian Northeast (Cowell 1975; de Melo1978). Many settled down near the banks of theBeberibe River, in makeshift houses, on the cur-rent municipal border between Recife and

Olinda. These illegal settlements disrupted theriver flow. As a result flooding became a com-mon occurrence causing trouble to the slumsbut also to the surrounding middle-class neigh-borhoods. Until the 1980s the only possiblesolution envisaged by the then military govern-ment was cleansing the area from slumsthrough large-scale evictions, but all efforts inthis direction were met with stubborn resist-ance. After a long period of struggle and nego-tiation, in which slum dwellers, oppositionpoliticians, militant activists, and those active inEcclesiastic Base Communities participated, thegovernment conceded to the demand of estab-lishing a resettlement and housing program forslum dwellers, not far from the river banks. Assuch Cho originated in 1981 (Cabral 2004).

However, this solution did not last long; soonthe riverside was again populated by very poorpeople. In 1987 another resettlement programtook place after which poor riverside dwellerswere again resettled. Every cleansing of the riverbanks has been followed by new illegal occupa-tions. Between 2007 and 2011, people were re-settled in the area as part of a large WorldBank-funded slum upgrading program (Koster

and Nuijten 2012). In effect, governmental pro-grams have served as attractors for the extremelypoor and have actually led to the expansion ofCho by resettling and housing slum dwellersfrom the riversides to contiguous areas.

It is important to note that Cho has growninto a socially and economically diverse settle-ment. Some of the houses built to compensatethe evicted riverside dwellers have been sold to

lower middle-class newcomers. Cho has bene-fited from government-funded sanitation,drainage, electrification, and road building pro-grams, and it falls under the legal protection ofa special program for non-legal settlements.Different NGOs have programs or offices in theneighborhood, some centered on activities oflocal residents, others implemented from the

outside, one even from abroad. Next, the many



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different religious congregations, varying fromCatholics, to all kinds of Pentecostals, to African-Brazilian cults like Umbanda, contribute to thesocial diversity of this slum.

The Beberibe River banks have always beenhome to the extremely poor, part of whomhoped to benefit from future resettlement pro-grams. This slum within the slum is not onlyseen as an environmental hazard but also as asource of criminality and violence as drug traf-fickers use the place because of its difficult ac-cessibility for the police. In this regard, Choresembles many other slums along the rivers inthe estuary of Recife.

Also, all community leaders of Cho havebeen involved in negotiating with governmentalprograms on behalf of the riverside dwellers.Under the current administration of the Partidodos Trabalhadores (Workers Party; PT), any kindof political mobilization in slums is stronglyfeared, as it could have adverse electoral reper-

cussions. For the municipality, community lead-ers have been important interlocutors, dealingwith problems for which a violent and authori-tarian resolution was not considered desirable.This, in fact, is a good example of the entwiningand interdependence of governmental, elec-toral, and slum politics.

Introducing Ovdio

A protagonist in the struggle against the govern-ments efforts to expel the slum dwellers fromthe area was Ovdio, the central character in theensuing case study. His central role in thesestruggles converted him into one of the histori-cal leaders of the area. He is credited for beingthe founder of Cho and played a central role in

the development of its current infrastructure.One of the blocks in the community has beennamed after him.

We came to know Ovdio through Incio,2 amutual friend who had been involved in the ba-sic struggles of the community. Incio, a middle-class, leftist politician, and ex-councilor, hadmaintained a cordial relation with Ovdio over

the years. According to Incio, Ovdio had been

closely involved in the struggle against the dic-tatorship in Recife. Ovdio, he told us, had, likehim, been an important local communist cadre.Due to financial problems, however, he had

later acquiesced in becoming a broker for animportant politician on the center-right. For ourfriend, this trajectory was emblematic for whathe saw as the corruption of the popular move-ment after the recognition of its demands forland and basic services. In his view, sheer povertyhad obliged Ovdio to sell his services as a bro-ker, thus becoming part of the traditionalBrazilian patron-client system. Furthermore,Ovdio more and more refrained from activistpolitics. According to Incio, this had to dowith the fact that Ovdio had noticed that hischances of still making a career in this fieldwere limited. Moreover, Ovdio had become ex-hausted of being manipulated by politicians whodid not deliver. Furthermore, he had to contendwith new aspirants to the position of commu-

nity leader, who had been quite successful inensuring the support of political patrons. Disil-lusioned by governmental and electoral politicshe had taken refuge in environmentalism andbecame attracted to evangelism, so much sothat he became an aspirant pastor. Ovdio dis-tanced himself from participatory state pro-grams and did not aspire to any position inconsultative bodies.

Although Incios was a plausible explana-tion for Ovdios reluctance to play a central rolein electoral politics at the moment, we foundthat things were more complex. In fact, Ovdiostill was, as always, involved in politics, yet thispolitics was a different one from what Inciohad in mind. Ovdio was engaged in slum poli-tics with an emphasis on environmental issues,solidarity, and income generation.

Incio introduced us to Ovdio, a short, dark-skinned man with a limp and a soft voice, at hishome. Ovdio offered us a tour through the set-tlement in order to show us the results of hisstruggles. He recounted history, while we passedthe community bakery, the football field, thecultural center, the community center and thebridge over the river, all projects in which he

had been involved. He showed us a severely de-



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graded physical environment with completelyovercrowded river and canal banks where housescovered and impaired the flow of the heavilypolluted water.

Ovdio took us to the health clinic, anotherproject he had promoted. Here, he told us aboutthe struggle for rights and services. He also nar-rated about his contacts with important politi-cians, his candidacy for the city council and thefederal senate, the part of the community thatcarried his name and the various people whohad interviewed him. He explained that being aleader was his vocation. The lack of modesty inthis frail, soft-spoken man who then walkedwith a stick, was striking. In recent years he hadbecome involved in ecological projects, such aswaste recycling, urban agriculture, and all kindsof consciousness raising about the environ-ment. The NGO that he started many years be-foreand represented mainly on his ownmade a move toward environmentalism in its

projects. Ovdio told us that he experienced en-vironmentalism as much more inspiring thanelectoral or governmental politics.

Ovdios practices reflected contradictionsthat are telling of the dilemmas of a communityleader. He could be viewed in different ways.First, like Incio saw him, as a historical socialactivist leader, who had become corrupted by apatron-client culture. Second, as a savvy, ma-

nipulative, and opportunistic broker, adept innegotiating with political patrons and in adopt-ing the latest rhetoric in order to gain access tofunds, a common vision among local leftistpoliticians. Finally, we could characterize himas an idealist, a religious convert who pursuespolitical and economic alternatives for the sluminformed by a worldview in which ecology, sol-idarity, and social justice are central.

All three explanations, we argue, are bothright and wrong. Ovdio is a historical leaderwho at some point played an important role ina powerful popular movement, but later in hislife chose the intimate culture of evangelism, areligious worldview that provided him withnew ways of relating to the community. He isalso a broker in the service of a political patron,

though ambivalent toward the latters program

and making electoral choices that his patrondoes not favor. In fact, he would not conceal hislack of commitment to the latter and, after theevents covered in this article, finally left him.

Last, his idealism is not devoid of practicalsense in that the pursuit of his ideals does notimpede him to enlarge his social network andthus his capacity to gain access to information,material benefits, and prestige.

Ovdios operational styleand thematic interest

Ovdio was addressed by his fellow slumdwellers with both respect and great familiarity.He was a leader, but was not elevated above themasses. People called at him on the street ask-ing whether he already had solved some prob-lem while others smiled when he passed in ahurry or made jokes about his agitation or his

small stature. Ovdio laughed with them, givingexpression to his performance of being firstamong equals. Despite familiarity and jokes,everybody considered Ovdio a leader. His ef-forts for the slum might be criticized, but neverdenied. As one slum dweller stated: Ovdio is arelic here in the community. Because he is a rareperson. He has plans. He looks at this [com-munity] as if it were his own country.

From early morning until late night, Ovdiowas busy, traveling through the city for personalencounters, group meetings, and all kinds ofmanifestations. He was always running aftersomething (correndo atrs) or in the struggle(na luta). Ovdio knew the needs of his fellowslum dwellers and many of these were hisown. He had a talent for maintaining relation-ships through being friendly, funny, and pro-

viding small favors to people, varying fromadvice in official procedures to paying for prod-ucts or services needed for community events.He was very creative and constantly inventednew ideas that would benefit those around him,like setting up a team of salaried street sweepersor organizing professionalizing courses. His ca-pacity of combining bad news with good news

was remarkable, as every time that he had to ac-



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count for a failure, he came up with anotherplan that refilled those present with enthusiasm.

Ovdio made a living through his activities:he received small stipends in money or kind

from people he worked with. Furthermore, hereceived a small fixed salary from the politicianfor whom he had agreed to work. AlthoughOvdio never discussed these compensations inpublic, it was no secret to his fellow slum dwell-ers who sometimes accused him of letting hisown income prevail over community interests.

The history of Cho was pivotal in Ovdiosperformance. He often reproduced this history,during innumerable meetings, in a manner thatunderscored his important role. Sometimes hetold a story himself, but many times he invitedanother person to do so, saying I am curiouswhether you still remember about and thenreminded them of some episode in the past,giving way to lively discussions filled withshared nostalgia. Doing so, Ovdio enacted rit-

uals of memory by which knowledge of com-munity history could be constructed and re-hearsed with old and new residents. Throughthese rituals, both successful and failed proj-ectsalso those that did not have any visible re-sults anymorebecame critical landmarks inthe communitys shared history. Ovdio alsohad his personal archivefolders with newspa-per cuttings, photographs, and piled papers

on the history of the community and thepopular movement. He kept this record as atangible proof of his achievements.

Working with environmentalism, Ovdiocreated an ideology of an ecologically sound fu-ture with a strong social emphasis. He wantedto work on a better environment and empha-sized the care that people ought to have for na-ture and each other. Unity, sincerity, solidarity

and fraternity, he said, were the key concepts ofhis projects. His ideology had a religious aspectin the idea of people taking care of the world asstewards of Gods creation.

Ovdio, who was a crente (Protestant), had asocial network which comprised crentes, Cath-olics, activists from black movements, conform-ists, and communists, despite the disagreement

and sometimes even conflicts that these groups

had with each other (Burdick 1998). His friend-ships among Catholics included those whom heknew from his engagement in Ecclesiastic BaseCommunities. He did not abstain from inviting

an Afro-dance group to one of his ceremonies,although this was abhorred by most crentes pres-ent, who associated Afro-culture with the workof the devil. His activities in the past with thecommunity radio are telling for Ovdios stancein life: he proudly recapitulated this episode,reminiscing that every social group in theneighborhoodCatholics, crentes, followers ofAfro-Brazilian cults, youth, elderlyhad onehour of broadcasting time.

Furthermore, Ovdios network, which hehad construed over many years of engagementin social movements and other political strug-gles, extended throughout the whole city andcrosscut all layers of society, as he maintainedconvivial relationships with politicians, officials,journalists, university professors, and company

directors. These persons made time for himwhen he visited them, listened to his ideas, andengaged in his projects. Ovdio had become awell-known figure in the city of Recife, recog-nized by both upper class politicians and slumdwellers. Throughout his career he displayed aremarkable sense of independence, not tied toany political party.

Ovdios urban agriculture project

This case study presents a community urbanagriculture project (horta comunitria) coordi-nated by Ovdio. It displays how slum politics isdifferent from, but overlaps with, governmentaland electoral politics. The project centered onthemes of environmentalism, income genera-

tion, and being a united community. Althoughin the end the project was not viable, due to theprecarious and provisional circumstances inwhich it had to take shape, we show how throughthis project Ovdio set out to articulate and con-solidate the needs and aspirations of fellowslum dwellers. Furthermore, Ovdios quest forresources, for which he turned to officials from

governmental programs, NGO workers, and



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politicians, shows how Ovdio gave shape to akind of practical inconclusiveness, as his at-tempts did not translate into concrete resources.This inconclusiveness, besides emphasizing the

importance of intangible resources and utopianaspirations next to material resources, articu-lated a conclusive attempt to put Cho on themap and (re-)establish potentially useful con-nections with people outside the slum.

The idea of the projectcarried out underthe banner of Ovdios NGOwas to grow veg-etables and fruits in order to provide partici-pants with a cheap and healthy contribution totheir daily diet. In this spirit of solidarity, thesurplus crops would be sold to neighbors atlower-than-market prices. In addition, economicadvancement was also intended as the projectwould produce and use its own organic com-post and sell the surplus. Initially, profit was tobe used to buy necessary materials, but in thelong term the project was meant to generate a

viable income for its participants. Finally, Ov-dio claimed that he had arranged support frompublic bodies in the form of cestas bsicasbasic food packages that on many occasionswere handed out to the poor.

Beyond the material needs of food produceand income, Ovdio had far-reaching, we couldeven say utopian, visions for the project. Ac-cording to him, the work, carried out on collec-

tive plots adjacent to individual ones, wouldenhance the spirit of solidarity. Furthermore, heargued that the project would show others whatpeople of the slum were up to and anticipated arosy future if the project succeeded. He alsocontended that the project would benefit theenvironment, because plants produce clean airin a polluted city. In Ovdios view, the care ofplants would set an example for the care of na-

ture and human beings for one another moregenerally.

At its peak, fourteen slum dwellers partici-pated in the new project. Some joined all of themeetings, workshops, and agricultural activi-ties, while others remained more on the side-lines, like one man who in practice only lookedafter the dog that guarded a collective plot. Some

already grew vegetables next to their houses

when they joined, while most of the older peo-ple remembered agricultural activities fromtheir rural past.

Participants joined the project with different

needs and aspirations. In part, these were of amaterial character, like food production, an in-come, and cestas bsicas. In addition, Ovdiogranted small favors to some, like selling eggs ofone to visiting officials, or giving out smallsums he had obtained from sales of manuresamples. A few participants were only in it forthe money and the cestas bsicas. When it soonbecame clear that the project could not providefor these needs in the short term, they quit.While some left, others joined.

Besides such material needs, a range of di-verse aspirations motivated people to join. Par-ticipants mentioned aspirations of an intangibleand sometimes utopian character, like doingsomething for the community by selling veg-etables at low prices to poorer neighbors. They

reflected on issues of solidarity, social change,a love of nature expressed through caring forplants, and environmental ideologies. Othersemphasized the importance of educating peo-ple. Some, who had knowledge of agriculture,took the opportunity to be recognized as capa-ble craftsmen. A young woman who partici-pated wanted to become a community leaderherself and set out to learn from Ovdio. A man

who was mentally challenged was invited byOvdio to join and greatly enjoyed the appreci-ation he received for his work on the project. Afinal motive to join, for some, was loyalty toOvdio, built on gratefulness and admiration forhis past achievements.

Ovdio was the undisputed leader of theproject, which was referred to as Ovdios proj-ect. He took decisions alone, visited outsiders

on his own, and only informed the other partic-ipants as he pleased or when they demandedexplanations. They mostly consented to Ov-dios coordination of the project. They even en-couraged him to articulate and consolidate theirneeds and aspirations and use his connectionsto outsiders for the sake of the project. Simulta-neously, the project had its conflicts and partic-

ipants had diverging needs and aspirations.



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Some wanted to make money quickly by mak-ing and selling compost, while others wanted toset up a long-term, environmentally sound com-munity project. Participants frequently accused

Ovdio of unaccountability and negligence inkeeping them posted.

Because material resources are scarce in aslum, Ovdio employed his connections withpeople from the outside for things like seeds,tools, and money. He established and main-tained connections around his thematic inter-est, as most of the people he turned to wereinterested in environmentalism and in urbanagriculture in particular. Ovdio related to therealm of governmental politics as he tried to linkup with existing governmental programs on dif-ferent levels. He registered his project in an ur-ban agriculture program of the GovernmentalAgrarian Research Institute. He also called inthe assistance of the federal Fome Zero (ZeroHunger) program through people he knew from

the municipal department of Economic Devel-opment. Other connections included the munic-ipal plant nursery, the municipal departmentsof Environmental Issues, Health and Educationand officials from a regional program of theFederal Ministry of Agricultural Development.He also maintained contacts with individualsfrom different NGOs that dealt with urban agri-culture, environmentalism, and recycling.

Ovdio acquired gardening tools from FomeZero, tubs from an NGO and, within the slum,two collective plots on the terrains of the Resi-dents Association and the local health post. Hemanaged to sell compost to the Municipal De-partment of Environmental Issuesalthoughrumors had it that they never paid, a district of-fice of the Health Department and an armybase. In addition, the Health Department

handed out cestas bsicas to the participants asChristmas presents.

Apart from this material help, most of thepromised assistance was of an intangible nature.Moreover, the majority of Ovdios negotiationsresulted in promises without substantial gains.At the time, production only took place in someindividual plots, while the soil of the collective

plot, even after the participants had cleaned and

ploughed it, appeared too poor and remainedunused. However, Ovdios concerns, as we willshow, were not so much with acquiring tangibleresources.

We followed Ovdios search for another ma-terial resource: construction material for wall-ing a collective plot in order to avoid theft ofcrops or tools. Ovdio received help from In-cio, who then worked in a regional program ofthe Federal Department of Agrarian Develop-ment. He pointed Ovdio to a load of plasterblocks for constructing the wall. These blockswere in the stores of CONAB (Companhia Na-cional de Abastecimento), the National SupplyCompany, where Incio knew people. Ovdiowent to the CONAB headquarters, where helooked for a high-level official who was men-tioned to him by Incio. Entering her office,Ovdio did not introduce himself, but askedher: Do you know Incio? Do you rememberwhat he has told you? She remembered and lis-

tened with interest to Ovdio. She instructed asubordinate to show him the plaster blocks. Backin the office, the subordinate realized that he hadnot measured the blocks, so he could not calcu-late how many Ovdio would need. The officialjotted down the perimeter of the plot and theheight of the wall, and commanded the subordi-nate to measure and calculate everything later.She promised to phone Ovdio the next day and

have the plaster delivered to Cho by truck.On our way back, Ovdio started to fantasize

happily about the joy of building the wall withfellow slum dwellers and sharing a good mealafterward. However, the official never called,Ovdio never called her, and the blocks neverarrived. Unlike us, we admit, Ovdio did notseem to be worried about the resources that hehad failed to acquire. Apparently, his concerns

were with other issues. A few days later welearned that he had, over the past month, ex-pressed his need for a truck to different peopleat various institutions, such as the Governmen-tal Agrarian Research Institute, the Municipal-ity, and an army base where he sold compost.He did not manage to arrange for a truck, butvisited all of these places and talked to many

people about his project.



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Furthermore, electoral politics had playeda role too. Incio, who had recently changedhis party affiliations from the communists tothe PT, wanted to show that he could arrange

a large constituency. He tried to cajole Ovdiointo the PT by granting him favors for his proj-ect. He pointed him to the plaster blocks atCONAB, which was at the time in the handsof the PT. Through Incio, Ovdio also cameto know the president of the Recife departmentof the PT, with whom he negotiated aboutother resources for the community. In themunicipal elections that followed, Ovdio didsome campaign work for a PT candidate coun-cilor whom Incio introduced to him, buteventually supported a candidate from anotherparty.

By searching for material and intangible re-sourceswhether they were acquired or notOvdio was connecting himself and his fellowslum dwellers to influential people and putting

Cho on the map, drawing the attention of offi-cials and politicians to its existence. He createdpossibilities for the future through establishingpotentially useful connections. Think only ofthe search for a truck that he expressed in dif-ferent locations: he managed to inform manydifferent people about the slum and gainedrecognition for the activities of himself and hisfellow slum dwellers.

After some time, the project petered out. Al-though, ultimately, it did not generate viablesources of income, largely due to the poor andprecarious circumstances of life in the slum, ithad temporarily provided participants with aproject that catered to their needs and aspira-tions, as they elaborated on solidarity and itslimits, worked for a better environment, pon-dered on social change, establishedthrough

Ovdioconnections with influential outsidersand were recognized as good craftsmen andvaluable participants. The project had providedthe slum dwellers with possibilities to envisageand hope for a better life in the slum.

From the outside, the project can be seen aspart of a long historical record of non-viableprojects. However, viewed from the perspective

of slum politics, it was an important event in

enhancing slum dwellers capacity to aspire fora better life. From this perspective, through theproject a sense of community was reproducedand people had been recognized for who they

really were.As such, slum politics, centered on needs

and aspirations of slum dwellers, is differentfrom governmental and electoral politics, whichare based on needs and desires external to theslum. The needs articulated in slum politics arepartly material, but also include symbolic andutopian elements that call upon values of com-munity solidarity and social justice.

Conclusion: The utopian potentialof a politics from the margins

In this article we showed how slum politics isboth entwined with and fundamentally differ-ent from governmental and electoral politics.

Slum politics has its own time horizon. Wheregovernmental politics is tied to the time of proj-ects and programs, and electoral politics to thetime of electoral campaigns and administrativeperiods, slum politics is tied to the time of theslum and its needs and aspirations.

As Davis (2006) argues, slums stand fornovel forms of mal-urbanization, which createspaces that are marginal to global capitalism.

Slums are also the targets of populist politiciansand fundamentalist political movements. Andyet, as the case of Cho shows, slums may alsobe spaces of hope, where languages of needs arepresent in which people learn to desire a differ-ent kind of future. As such, slum politics can beseen as a politics of possibility.

Given the fact that slums are assuming anincreasingly larger place on this planetin ab-

solute and relative terms (Davis 2006; UN-Habitat 2003)the need to understand slumpolitics becomes urgent. When a soon-to-bemajority of the worlds population experienceslife and politics in ways that differ from domi-nant views and theorizations on their life andpolitics, we need to open up new possibilitiesfor conceptualizing what is happening in slums,

departing from any homogenizing discourse



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and moving into a new discursive space of di-versity (Gibson-Graham 2005).

This resonates with what Appadurai callsgovernmentality from below (2001: 34),

which, like slum politics, builds upon and pro-vides space to express the aspirations of slumdwellers. Yet where Appadurai sees this in glob-alized attempts to influence and democratizepolicies, we emphasize slum politics local andfragmented workings, as a site and spur of be-coming, the opening for politics (Gibson-Gra-ham 2005: 132), which provides people with alanguage for envisaging a better life.

We must understand slum politics not onlyas a derivative of governmental politics, as doesChatterjee (2004), but as based on its own inter-nal needs and aspirations. Here is a need to con-tribute to a different politics of representation(Escobar 2001:158) which, as we have shown,must depart from dystopic representations ofslum life in order to find opportunities to make

ways thinkable that were formerly unthinkable,muted, and disavowed. In such a politics of rep-resentation, slums, rather than as spaces of ex-clusion and abjection, could be imagined asplaces of hope.

Acknowledgements

This research was co-financed by VIDI grant45205-365 of NWO, the Netherlands Organi-zation for Scientific Research.

Martijn Koster is researcher and lecturer atUtrecht University, the Netherlands. He carriedout research on community leaders, politics,and slum upgrading in Recife, Brazil, and on

urban renewal and youth in Utrecht, the Neth-erlands. Currently he is conducting research oncitizenship and urban renewal in social housingareas in Utrecht, the Netherlands.E-mail: [email protected]

Pieter A. de Vries is senior researcher and lec-turer at Wageningen University, the Nether-

lands. He has conducted research in Costa Rica

(on colonization and rural development proj-ects), Mexico (on caciques), Peru (on indige-nous communities) and Polynesia (on thesocio-medical consequences of the nuclear tests

on island populations). Currently he is inter-ested in processes of inclusion and exclusion inurban slums.E-mail: [email protected].

Notes

1. Martijn Koster has conducted twenty-one

months of fieldwork in Cho between 2003 and2009 and lived eighteen months in the slum.Pieter de Vries has visited the slum severaltimes for shorter periods.

2. Pseudonym.

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