EMBODIED URBANIZATIONS AND AMEFRICAN FUTURITIES: Lucia's Epistemology

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, I examine the definition of resistance given by a favela woman from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil—Lucia Cabral—and its epistemological potential for urban theory. From a feminist, postcolonial and decolonial point of view, I argue that Lucia's definition of resistance entails an insightful framework to understand urban transformations, because she shifts the question of ‘what they are’ to ‘where they stream from’. I build on my situated position and inter‐relationality with Lucia to argue that, first, urban transformations, which I here refer to as forms of urbanization, can and often do come from the favela; secondly, that these forms of urbanization derive from situated and translocated‐ing Amefrican epistemologies; and thirdly, that women's bodies constitute, in many cases, the very basis of urban futurities in the favelas. I look into embodied forms of urbanization to conclude that it is possible to see, feel, sense and nurture forms of future‐thinking and ‐building that I here call Amefrican futurities, for they emerge from the specific subjectivities and praxis of women living in the favelas.