Journal of Latin American Studies (2020), 1–27 doi:10.1017/S0022216X20000012 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Narratives of Crisis in the Periphery of São Paulo: Place and Political Articulation during Brazil’s Rightward Turn Matthew Aaron Richmond* Visiting Fellow, Latin American and Caribbean Centre (LACC), London School of Economics and Postdoctoral Researcher, Grupo de Pesquisa Produção do Espaço e Redefinições Regionais (GAsPERR), Universidade Estadual Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil. *Corresponding author. Email:
[email protected] Abstract Between 2014 and 2018, a period marked by major political and economic upheaval, Brazilian politics shifted sharply to the Right. Presenting qualitative research conducted over 2016–17, this article examines this process from the perspectives of residents of a peri- pheral São Paulo neighbourhood. Analysis is presented of three broad groups of respon- dents, each of which mobilised a distinct narrative framework for interpreting the crisis. Based on this, I argue that the rightward turn in urban peripheries embodies not a signifi- cant ideological shift, but rather long-term transformations of place and the largely con- tingent ways these articulate with electoral politics. Keywords: Brazil; peripheries; place; political attitudes; crisis; subjectivity; Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) Introduction On 28 October 2018, after a bitter and highly polarised election campaign, far-right congressman Jair Bolsonaro of the Partido Social Liberal (Social Liberal Party, PSL) defeated his opponent, Fernando Haddad of the leftist Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party, PT), to become President of Brazil. Bolsonaro’s run-off victory, winning 55 per cent of valid votes, completed a dramatic rightward turn in Brazilian electoral politics since 2014, when former president Dilma Rousseff had achieved re-election to begin a fourth successive term of PT-led government.