Fortaleza em disputa: contradições da política urbana e processos de re-existências no Serviluz e Cais do Porto

Abstract

There were many paths that led me to embark on this research. These paths are the result of various times intersecting from my entries into popular territories as a popular technical advisor and activist. Through my engagement in the city of Fortaleza, mostly in coastal popular territories, I mobilize these territorial involvements throughout the research to assist in the understanding of processes of dispute and resistance against the logic of institutional urban planning that operates under the mechanisms of capitalism and the city's development and modernization project. I, therefore, incorporate the approach of activist research as a method. Two territories on the eastern coast of Fortaleza, namely Serviluz and Cais do Porto, are studied in more detail. I approach this with the understanding that the research process is not detached from the researcher's involvement but rather, this research is mobilized precisely because it is embedded in these processes. Dialogues are established between the concepts of resistance and re-existence (PORTO-GONÇALVES, 2006) in order to provide analytical keys for the web of conflicts and disputes that occur in these two territories. Through territorial engagements in Serviluz and Cais do Porto, it was possible to see powerful processes of popular and insurgent planning, led by the residents. They are charting alternative paths and denouncing the capitalist logic imposed on their territories and bodies, pointing to other possibilities of planning and existence. The resistance of the Serviluz and Cais do Porto territories has historically and geographically presented itself much more as re-existence than as resistance, in epistemic, political, economic, and cultural terms, challenging the urban planning and order imposed on the territory, conceived and reinforced through the alliance between capital and the state.