LITTLE BY LITTLE: ASSEMBLING PERSONHOODS, HOUSES AND STREETS IN THE RIO DE JANEIRO PERIPHERY

Abstract

Based on an ethnographic fieldwork in Jardim Maravilha, a peripheral subdivision located in Rio de Janeiro, the article aims at two objectives: to understand how the people living in the urban peripheries appropriate time and space through the house; to reveal the heuristic potential of the concept of assemblage (Deleuze & Guattari). First, it discusses the concepts of mobility, showing how the confrontation between those and housing practices leads to the formulation of a new one: intensive mobility. Then, it deals with urbanization and self-construction through native practices (infrastructural bricolage) and ideas (progress). These practices and ideas point to a pragmatic appropriation of the world (territorial assemblage), which is also an intense one: the popular expression “little by little”, in particular, indicates a life lived slowly, regularly and unnoticeably, by contiguity - little by little, the house expands, another street starts to benefit from public services. The article concludes on further analytical developments.

Keywords:
Urban periphery; assemblage; urbanization; self-construction; mobility