Latin American city as a category: universality, singularity and particularities in the urbanization of Bogotá, Buenos Aires and Havana

• Grant number: 22/16822-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: October 01, 2023
• End date: January 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Júlio César Suzuki
• Grantee: Suzana Maria Loureiro Silveira
• Host Institution: Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Latin American city as a category of analysis is constituted as a place of materialization ofsocial values resulting from the phenomenon of urbanization and the social production ofspace in the historical specificity of Latin American capitalism. The starting point of thisinvestigation is the hypothesis about the constitution of the Latin American city as thestructuring of a model related to the rationalization of space as a product of Europeancolonization in America that conditioned Latin American cities to the conception of beinginstruments of organization, implementation and development in the dynamic establishedbetween the metropolis and the colonies, as well as an essential element in the formation ofnational states. Due to the historical determination of the capitalist mode of production, thereis a centrality assumed by the cities with regard to the Latin American socio-territorialformation. As an interdisciplinary investigation, the procedures and methods adopted willconsist of the elaboration of a systematic bibliographical review, as well as a comparativestudy on the singularity of the Latin American city and the particularities of the urbanizationprocesses of Bogotá, Buenos Aires and Havana, as urban agglomerations consolidated in thecolonial project. This research also adopts the investigation technique of case study anddocumentary research in colonial archives and local public archives, based on the socio-spatialprofile of Andean, Rioplatense and Caribbean cities. As a general objective, we seek to analyzethe category "Latin American city", based on the colonial project and the alteration of theforms of societal organization in Latin America, considering the Hispanic colonization process.In this sense, we seek to understand the nature of the Latin American urbanization process, itsorigins, morphologies, causes and effects that influence the production of space in LatinAmerica related to the problem arising from the colonial project. Therefore, the aim is toanalyze the Latin American city as a singularity resulting from the colonial process of Europeancapitalist expansion. (AU)