The The peripheral territories of the metropolis of São Paulo: from “uneven an combined development” to “actually existing deconstruction”

Abstract

Taking as a starting point our research on Jardim Ibirapuera, a peripheral subdivision in the South Zone of the city of São Paulo (BR), we defend the thesis that the heuristic power of the theory of uneven and combined development to think about the relationship that the peripheral territories in formation established with the centrality of capital accumulation became inadequate in the face of the contradictory developments of São Paulo’s own modernization and metropolization throughout the 20th century. Our thesis is that the modernization of São Paulo, in achieving its purpose, led to the crisis of labor and the collapse of modernization, radically modifying the relationship that the families living in the peripheral territories establish from now on with the reproduction of capital. The collapse, however, did not produce a generalized declassification, but triggered the emergence of new social, economic and spatial disparities resulting from the different temporalities inscribed in the formation and reproduction of the peripheries, testifying to a really existing process of deconstruction that does not easily fit together. with the class antagonism bequeathed by traditional Marxism, demanding a transformation of its interpretation and criticism.