Macalester College DigitalCommons@Macalester College Latin American Studies Honors Projects Latin American Studies 2017 Activating Informality: Negotiating Urban Identities in Bolivia and Brazil Georgia E. Gempler Macalester College,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/lashonors Part of the Human Geography Commons, Latin American Languages and Societies Commons, and the Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Gempler, Georgia E., "Activating Informality: Negotiating Urban Identities in Bolivia and Brazil" (2017). Latin American Studies Honors Projects. 10. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/lashonors/10 This Honors Project is brought to you for free and open access by the Latin American Studies at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Latin American Studies Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Activating Informality: Negotiating Urban Identities in Bolivia and Brazil Georgia Gempler Honors Thesis in Latin American Studies Advisor: Professor Paul Dosh, Latin American Studies Macalester College Defended on April 14, 2017 Abstract: Drawing on original research, this paper explores the relationship between community identity and informality in Bolivia and Brazil, answering the question “How does informality influence and operate as identity in the social imaginary of urban Bolivia and Brazil?” Based on case studies of informal settlements in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia and Niterói, Brazil, I argue that informality is a tool of social control, community resistance, and identity consolidation. Community identity is informed by the territorial stigmatization of place through national conceptualizations of race and violence, and histories of marginality, resulting in resistance identity and insurgent citizenships.