The city and narratives: speech and the right to the city in opaque spaces

Abstract

The divided city territorializes inequalities, legitimized by a hegemonic discourse that serves the dominant ideas and values. From its physically and socially fragmented spaces it chooses those to illuminate, to show as the image of the city of spectacle, and those which will be cast to the shadows and will be invisible. By mitigating subjectivities and rejecting deviant behavior and discourses, it builds, shapes and frames the city it wants to be and be seen. At the limits where the visibility ceases, the city is, however, in continuous production. The shadow that covers the marginalized territories also reveals them, since their practices escape the comprehension of the totalizing gaze. Through the marginal culture, underprivileged areas spread their shadow over the illuminated areas of the city, painting it with its subjectivity, giving it new meanings, disputing its spaces and speeches. From the peripheral territories emanate other narratives of the city and feelings of collaboration arise between partners in similar situations and opinions, aiming to conquer spaces in favour of the citizen participation. Under theoretical contributions of Michel de Certeau and Milton Santos, mainly, we aim to discuss the unequal distribution of the right to speech and visibility, and highlight the "ways of making" of the "opaque spaces", which dispute the city through its narratives, allowing new gazes over it, and other stories to be told that expand the right to the city. Here we defend the right to speech as a right to the city, translated into effective struggles for the deconstruction of social stigmas.