In this guest post, Dr Priscila Izar, Prof Paula Freire Santoro, and Dr Elinorata Mbuya discuss their research on how urban transformations in peripheral areas impact marginalized women, a project supported by a Seminar Series Awards grant from the USF.
In recent years, feminist perspectives on urbanization have become increasingly vital in understanding and addressing the complex issues that affect peripheral territories and marginalized communities, all the while urbanization at the periphery continues to expand. To contribute to this debate, a series of seminars was organized under the USF Seminar Series Awards to foster transdisciplinary and intersectional dialogue about feminist urban struggles. We adopted this concept to describe the everyday, multiple strategies and articulations often led by women to simultaneously transform and protect their peripheral territories while also facing intersectional violences. The series also sought to promote knowledge exchanges between academics, practitioners, and community organizers and activists. Through a combination of virtual and face-to-face events across multiple regions, the series provided a platform for participants to engage in meaningful dialogue about the challenges and possibilities of feminist approaches to urban spaces.
A Feminist Approach to the Periphery
The seminars were built on two core objectives: to deepen academic discussions on feminist urban struggles through intersectional lens (Collins et al., 2021, Helene et al., 2021), and to expand networks that connect research with activism (Allen et al., 2022).
The concept of “periphery” was key to these discussions. Following Maricato (1982) and Bonduki and Rolnik (1979), autoconstruction (or self-built housing, infrastructure and services) was approached as a structuring element, a mode of production characteristic of the peripheries that the series explored. As everyday social and spatial processes (Meth et al., 2024), we also considered that peripheries could be located at the city’s edges as well as the centre (Santos, 2011).
The series also emphasized how peripheries are territories with their own expressivity and historicity, marked by the formation of peripheral subjects (D’Andrea, 2022), through struggle and resistance (hooks 2000), often led by women (Gonzalez, 2020). By focusing on peripheries, the series also sought to decenter the production of knowledge (Watson, 2016) about feminist urban struggles.
Through a variety of events that included academic debates and workshops, situated experiences and open conversation (conversation circles), the seminar series highlighted the daily practices of resistance by communities facing exclusion, recognizing these actions as crucial elements of peripheral identity and political subjectivity. The seminars emphasized how peripheral urban spaces are produced through networks of interaction, resistance, and adaptation. These spaces are not simply defined by physical marginality but are shaped by their inhabitants’ social realities, struggles, and practices.
Global Conversations and Local Experiences
The seminars were organized into four major events. The first was a virtual international seminar held in November 2023, hosted by the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo (IEA-USP), with support of the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam, and the Habitat International Coalition (HIC). The virtual international seminar brought together researchers from around the world to discuss the multiple struggles of women and marginalized communities in peripheral territories through a feminist lens. Feminist scholars Veronica Gago, Faranak Miraftab and Adriana Allen featured as keynote speakers and highlighted key dimensions at the intersection of contemporary, neoliberal and financialized urbanization and feminist struggles: the indebtedness of life (Gago), radical care as forms of feminist resistance in contexts of violence, dispossession and war (Miraftab) and the exposure of poverty and marginalization as popular resistance and call for transdisciplinary action (Allen). Their keynotes are available on the YouTube channel of LabCidade at FAU USP (see below).
Three in-person seminars followed the virtual event. The first was in São Paulo, Brazil, in March 2024, with the support of SESC, the São Paulo trade union’s cultural arm. The second seminar was in Johannesburg, South Africa, in April 2024, and the third seminar was in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, also in April 2024, with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Tanzania Office. Professor Marjorie Mbilinyi delivered her keynotes at the Dar es Salaam Seminar, contextualizing feminist urban struggles in relation to urbanization and women’s movements and resistances in Tanzania, based on her longitudinal research work and her activism (Mbilinyi 2016).
Based on the goal of expanding grassroots networks and sharing situated knowledge, social movement leaders, involved in feminist urban struggles in each of the cities hosting the face-to-face seminars participated in the events and hosted at least one site visit. They also travelled to the other cities, to participate in the seminars. Graça a Xavier, Coordinator of the National Union for Popular Housing (UNMP), the Union of Housing Movements (UMM), represented São Paulo. Husna Seif Shechongue, National Coordinator of the Tanzanian Federation for the Urban Poor, represented Dar es Salaam. Petunia Mabuza, Asivikelane Campaign, South Africa, represented Tshwane/Johannesburg.
The events were designed to explore several key themes:
- Feminist Urban Research: The seminars facilitated discussions on feminist research methodologies, drawing on intersectional, decolonial, and transdisciplinary approaches.
- Women’s Activism in Peripheral Spaces: A focus was placed on understanding the various forms of activism led by women in both urban and rural peripheries, particularly in response to dispossession and forced evictions.
- Collective Care and Solidarity: Feminist lenses were used to explore how women’s collective practices of care and solidarity shape the spaces they inhabit and resist within.
Over 115 participants attended the virtual seminar, which was recorded and made available on YouTube and has accumulated more than 2,300 views. The proceedings can be downloaded here. The face-to-face seminars involved around 610 participants across the three cities and visited 17 different communities and territories, highlighting the real-world impact of feminist urban struggles in diverse global contexts.
Feminist Methodologies and Grounded Knowledge
One of the seminars’ main goals was to advance the debate on feminist research methodologies. The workshop held in São Paulo focused on “feminist research as epistemological indiscipline,” where scholars reflected on the process of engaging with local women’s groups in transforming their communities. These sessions emphasized the importance of co-producing knowledge that challenges conventional academic hierarchies, drawing inspiration from feminist scholar bell hooks, as well as educator Paulo Freire.
In addition to traditional academic formats, the seminars also incorporated site visits, allowing participants to engage directly with the communities involved in the struggles they were studying. These visits became transformative experiences, enabling participants to see firsthand the power of grassroots activism and feminist solidarity. The international guests often expressed a sense of connection with the struggles faced by women in different countries, as well as admiration for the progress made by housing movements in places like São Paulo.
Challenges and Resistance in Feminist Urban Movements
The seminars also provided an opportunity to examine the relationships between feminist urban struggles and the state in more nuanced ways (Charlton and Meth, 2017). While public institutions can sometimes support these movements, they can also be contradictory or ineffective in dealing with grassroots leaders and in addressing the needs of marginalized populations. Through dialogues and discussions, participants analyzed the ways in which women-led movements interact with state mechanisms like housing councils, for example, while also operating outside formal political structures through grassroots organizing.
Participants also explored strategies of resistance against daily challenges in peripheral territories, such as poverty, unemployment, inadequate infrastructure, and gender-based violence. Feminist urban struggles are often situated within broader frameworks of crisis, including climate disasters, environmental degradation and war. While state intervention is necessary to address these crises, women in peripheral communities often take on the responsibility of care and protection during times of disaster, making their role in resistance and rebuilding crucial.
The Importance of Feminist Solidarity
The seminars succeeded in forging new alliances between scholars and practitioners, fostering deeper connections between movements committed to feminist liberation across different regions. The shared experiences of struggle and resistance helped build a strong sense of solidarity among participants, who expressed a commitment to continuing these collaborations.
The goal was not only to produce academic knowledge but to ensure that this knowledge contributes to tangible outcomes for the communities involved. The seminars demonstrated the power of feminist methodologies to create spaces for critical reflection and action, helping to shape urban policies that are more inclusive and democratic.
Looking Ahead: Expanding Feminist Urban Struggles
The seminar series provided a rich platform for expanding debates on feminist urban struggles and peripheral urbanization. By connecting scholars, activists, and community leaders across regions, it facilitated the co-production of knowledge that challenges conventional understandings of urban space and marginality. The collaboration between feminist scholars and grassroots movements highlighted the importance of continuing these dialogues, ensuring that the voices of women in peripheral territories remain at the forefront of urban research and policy making.
As the network of participants and collaborators continues to grow, the impact of this seminar series will be felt for years to come as new partnerships are formed and existing bonds are strengthened. Together, they will continue to push for more inclusive, feminist approaches to urbanization and the end of all forms of oppression over marginalized populations and peripheral territories.
Works cited:
Allen, Adriana, Julia Wesely, Paola Blanes, Florencia Brandolini, Mariana Enet, Rodrigo Faria G. Iacovini, Rosario Fassina et al. “Crafting urban equality through grassroots critical pedagogies: weave, sentipensar, mobilize, reverberate, emancipate.” Environment and Urbanization 34, no. 2 (2022): 446-464.
Bonduki, N. G., & Rolnik, R. (1979). Periferias ocupação do espaco e reprodução da forca de trabalho [por]…[e] Raquel Rolnik. Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Fundação para Pesquisa Ambiental.
Charlton, S., & Meth, P. (2017). Lived experiences of state housing in Johannesburg and Durban. Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa, 93(1), 91-115.
Caldeira, T. P. (2017). “Peripheral urbanization: Autoconstruction, transversal logics, and politics in cities of the global south. ” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 35(1), 3-20.
Collins, P. H., da Silva, E. C. G., Ergun, E., Furseth, I., Bond, K. D., & Martínez-Palacios, J. (2021). Intersectionality as critical social theory: Intersectionality as critical social theory, Patricia Hill Collins, Duke University Press, 2019. Contemporary Political Theory, 20(3), 690.
D’Andrea, T. P. (2022). A formação das sujeitas e dos sujeitos periféricos: cultura e política na periferia de São Paulo.
Gonzalez, L. (2020). Por um feminismo afro-latino-americano. Editora Schwarcz-Companhia das Letras.
Helene, D., Pereira, G. L., Santoro, P. F., & Tavares, R. B. (2021). Dossiê território, gênero e interseccionalidades. Revista brasileira de estudos urbanos e regionais, 23.
Maricato, E. (1982). Autoconstrução, a arquitetura possível. A produção capitalista da casa (e da cidade) no Brasil industrial, 2, 71-93.
Mbilinyi, M. (2016). Analysing the history of agrarian struggles in Tanzania from a feminist perspective. Review of African Political Economy, 43(sup1), 115-129.
Meth, Paula, Sarah Charlton, Tom Goodfellow, and Alison Todes. Living the urban periphery: Infrastructure, everyday life and economic change in African city-regions. Manchester University Press, 2024.
Santos, M. (2011) “Geografia e Planejamento: o Uso do Território Geopolítica” Revista Eletrônica: Tempo-Técnica-Território/Eletronic Magazine: Time-Technique-Territory 2, no. 2.
Watson V (2016) Shifting approaches to planning theory: Global North and South. Urban Planning 1(4): 32–41.