Weaving memories along the thread of the struggle: decoloniality in the history of the city

Abstract

The coloniality of urban knowledge intersects the field of historical studies on architecture and the city in the Global South, and contributes to the invisibilization of the history and memory of subalternized groups. Based on this premise, this article brings a decolonial perspective circumscribed in theoretical debates regarding the Global South, which seeks to question hegemonic theories and methodologies, linking critique to the concrete experience of societies marked by colonialism. Our objective is to help construct a historiography of architecture and the city, which contemplates the memories of social groups in subordinate situations. We suggest that observing everyday life and urban struggles contributes to the democratization of history and collective memory. Thus, we address popular housing occupations in the port region of Rio de Janeiro and urban struggles for the right to housing and work, highlighting the women and men who live in the city and construct it. Using oral reporting, we bring the narrative and everyday life of peripheral working women to the center of the story. As the main results, we have reflected on the colonial and decolonial, Eurocentric and subaltern categories of theoretical debates located in the Global South, essentially demonstrating the speech of the working woman in the dispute of the narratives.