In Latin America’s pink tide democracies, peripheries were pivotal openings into the ambiguities of political and economic urban governance. Once portrayed as territories of decay, state disregard, and societal oblivion, peripheries turned into key moral and spatial assemblages in Brazil’s post-neoliberal project of a “de-poored,” middle-class country. This article draws on ethnographic research conducted in two peripheral Minha Casa Minha Vida projects—Brazil’s large-scale public housing program—in the city of Porto Alegre. Charting the long-term entanglements of local activism, communal hope, and national developmentalism, I argue that peripheral zones illuminate the ambivalences of state- and place-making. Unveiling the politics of differentiation and distended governance that render one periphery a successful case of state and market intervention over the other, I explore how images of the “model periphery” are enforced through local infrastructures of worth and the effacement of its failed Other: the intractable faraway periphery, deemed to disappear in the name of public accountability and social and economic development. In conclusion, the article suggests that the consorted travails of leaders, citizen activists, politicians, and planners in casting visibility onto the model periphery contribute to bolstering and obscuring extant patterns of urban segregation and social inequality.

中文翻译：

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巴西公共住房的差异化政治与“样板周边”的共生

在拉丁美洲的粉红潮民主国家，外围地区是政治和经济城市治理模棱两可的关键开口。曾经被描绘成衰败、国家漠视和社会遗忘的领土，在巴西的后新自由主义项目中，周边地区变成了关键的道德和空间组合，即“去穷”的中产阶级国家。本文借鉴了在阿雷格里港市的两个外围 Minha Casa Minha Vida 项目（巴西的大型公共住房项目）中进行的民族志研究。通过描绘地方激进主义、社区希望和国家发展主义的长期纠葛，我认为外围区域阐明了国家和地方塑造的矛盾心理。我揭示了分化政治和扩张治理使一个外围成为国家和市场干预的成功案例，我探讨了“典型外围”的形象如何通过当地的价值基础设施得到加强，并抹杀其失败的他者：以公共责任和社会经济发展的名义被视为消失的难以处理的遥远边缘。总之，这篇文章表明，领导人、公民活动家、政治家和规划者在将可见度投射到模型外围方面所付出的辛勤努力，有助于加强和掩盖现存的城市隔离和社会不平等模式。以公共责任和社会经济发展的名义，被视为消失的难以处理的遥远边缘。总之，这篇文章表明，领导人、公民活动家、政治家和规划者在将可见度投射到模型外围方面所付出的辛勤努力，有助于加强和掩盖现存的城市隔离和社会不平等模式。以公共责任和社会经济发展的名义，被视为消失的难以处理的遥远边缘。总之，这篇文章表明，领导人、公民活动家、政治家和规划者在将可见度投射到模型外围方面所付出的辛勤努力，有助于加强和掩盖现存的城市隔离和社会不平等模式。