The Recife that no one sees: An analysis of living at the neighborhood of Pilar in Recife
Pilar; representation; dynamics; practices; community.
In the midst of a market context, and the consequent rates of consumption this causes in cities, the work presented here aims to discuss how the commercialization of spaces comes to adapt itself to surroundings not necessarily included in the objectives of the economic rationalist, but which nevertheless take on a modernity which is suited to capitalistic parameters. Here we will deal with strategies undertaken by those who live in the neighborhood of Pilar, Recife, where the gentrification of surroundings has taken place. To attend to consumer anxiety the area has suffered an entire process of modification, changing its own structural logic, to favor tourism and the consumer. This work seeks to understand the situation of those who live next to the city’s main tourist stretch, as they suffer from an extreme lack of public policies; and they live separated, by walls, from pro-consumer advantages. Here we will examine the possible tactics and strategies adopted by residents in Pilar, a neighborhood adjacent to Recife Antigo, in order to survive - their being in the middle of capitalism and real estate speculation. We set out by micro-sociological analysis to gain an understanding from individuals and from their daily relationships of how, in a space permeated by inequalities, the situation can have a meaning. We look to see if strategies of re-signifying the inhabited space exist and in what ways they are linked to the process of gentrification of Recife Antigo.