Changes in the sociabilities of Brazilian urban poor (1964-2016)

Building on almost a decade of empirical research in a favela in Belo Horizonte, this article seeks to show the connections between the Brazilian political and state macro-contextual structures and the micro-localized dynamics of everyday socialization in the country's marginalized urban spaces between 1964 and 2016. Combining ethnographical with sociohistorical methodologies, the analysis I provide is based on i) memories of favela dwellers regarding the neighbourhood's past, ii) documentation of the history of Belo Horizonte, and iii) participant observation in events that took place while I was conducting fieldwork. The article examines three main axes a) the dynamics of access to political and social rights, b) the incidence of violence (political-ideological or police criminal), and c) the poverty level, and concludes that, in the period under study, Brazilian urban poor have moved from a sociability centered on trust to an interaction based on respect.