Os territórios ocupados pelas personagens em situação de rua: um outro olhar sobre as cidades em Menos que um e Maremoto

Abstract

This research presents an analysis of two literary works: Menos que um (2022), by Patrícia Melo, and Maremoto (2021), by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida. Both works feature unhoused characters at the center of the narrative, thus representing a heterogeneous group of people who make up one of the most vulnerable layers of what Zygmunt Bauman (2005) defines as “wasted lives”, that is, people considered disposable by a globalized system that prioritizes profit over life. This system drives a constant increase in people living on the streets, which can also be observed in the two countries where the objects of this research were produced and where their fictional narratives are set: Brazil and Portugal. These people live mainly in the center of large cities and are invisible both in urban spaces and in narratives. Literature is no exception to this process of exclusion, and so the objects analyzed here fill the gaps in the literary field by focusing on people who are underrepresented in contemporary works. This representation, in turn, allows for the expansion of the narrative universe through the inclusion of new perspectives and contributes to the fight for the rights of these people by exposing the conditions in which they live. Therefore, within this broader theme, the focus of analysis was established on the territory occupied by unhoused characters, seeking to understand how such perspectives contribute to the construction of new urban narratives. In an intertext with geographical studies, we start here from the understanding, based on Rogério Haesbaert (2005; 2009; 2015; 2024), that territory is the result of power relations that permeate spaces. From this perspective, Haesbaert highlights two processes that make up territorialization: domination, related to the functional dimension of the territory, and appropriation, related to the symbolic-cultural dimension. For a more in-depth analysis, other references were used, with emphasis on the studies of Milton Santos (2004; 2005), Zygmunt Bauman (2005) and Teresa Caldeira (2000). All these contributions allowed us to observe, in Menos que um and Maremoto, the spatial segregations that mark the deterritorialization of characters living on the streets and the ways they find to survive and resist, constructing precarious territorializations.