Urban landscape and the urban existence: the cultural circle as reading and building visualities and subjectivities in Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

Social housing policies in the Brazilian urban context have been guided by a technocratic and hygienist logic that disregards the social, symbolic, and affective dimensions of urban landscapes. This article analyzes the effects of a housing policy on ways of inhabiting and existing in the city, based on the removal of the Inferno Verde favela and the relocation of its residents to the João Batista Housing Complex, in Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a process that reconfigured the urban landscape. The research adopts a qualitative approach, combining bibliographic review, participant observation, and shared anthropological experience, developed within the scope of a university extension project. The Cultural Circle, inspired by Emiliano Dantas and Paulo Freire’s Culture Circle, was used to access residents’ narratives and perceptions through images of the transforming urban landscape. The results indicate ruptures in community bonds and difficulties in territorial appropriation, revealing a mismatch between institutional policy and local lived experiences.