The ontology of resistance: Power, tactics and making do in the Vila Rubim market

Abstract

We re-examine the relation between power and resistance by investigating the reconstruction of the Vila Rubim market, one of the established markets in the city of Vitória in Brazil. Following a fire that destroyed large parts of the market – probably the most significant event in its history – the market had to be fully rebuilt and the broader local area had to be redeveloped. Empirical materials were collected through ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and visual and archival research. The destruction and reconstruction of the Vila Rubim market unleashed a fierce struggle between the city council and the market’s traders. We argue that the traders’ resistance to urban management was most significant in shaping the outcome of this conflict by initiating a multiplicity of space-making practices. We reframe resistance as ontological, that is as the practice of creating a material position, of making a world that allows an alternative form of life to emerge beyond given power relations. Rather than in acts of protest, the stallholders of the Vila Rubim market engaged in mundane tactics which created alternative ontologies of existence in urban space.