Observations during a participatory video workshop conducted by the author within an immigrant community located in the outskirts of Lisbon are the starting point for anthropological reflections on the "power of the gaze". The gaze of state institutions and of agents of power (as the media, for instance) both reflects and crystallizes power relations. Residents of the underprivileged neighborhoods in the periphery of metropolitan areas are the object of a gaze that simultaneously builds their otherness and mediate their stereotypical image to the Portuguese society as a whole. "To exhibit", "to hide" and "to supervise" are identified as "powerful" forms of dealing with issues of public visibility, and also as elements of a "grammar" and socio-spatial order of the gaze that operates in the urban centers of the country.
Visibility; Marginal communities; Portugal; Migrants; Drugs