The government of illegalisms in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro: A comparison of the informal street markets

The presentation is an analysis of the relationships between forms of social control and popular illegalisms based on ethnographic research of the informal street markets in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

On one side are found the modern practices of “good urban governance” whose police, tax and urban instruments produce the urban socio-spatial device of social control. On the other hand the popular illegalisms situate the conflicts and tensions of the groups that dispute politics economics and urban space.

The articulation between “good urban governance” practices and the network of old and new forms of illegalisms enlightens power settings of groups in the cities, the differential management of illegalisms, as well as the social cleavages that emerge from this contest.