This event aims to present empirical studies that challenge theories about the socio-spatial organisation of Latin American cities, offering innovative proposals for reflecting on race, space and capital, based on the concepts of racial capitalism and coloniality.

Most urban studies in Latin America still disregard race as an important analytical tool for understanding spatial logics and their relationship with capital and colonialism. When the racialisation of communities is taken into account, it is often only as empirical data, without shifting the analysis away from class-based theorisation. Thus, race remains a datum (Da Silva 2019), not analysed as a technology of power that structures socio-spatial organisation.

This event invites us to look at urbanisation processes from the perspectives of coloniality and racial capitalism, understanding the relational dynamics between the territorialisation of racism, accumulation/dispossession/expropriation, and the socio-spatial formation of Latin American cities.

Several questions will guide the papers presented and the debate: Which theories have discussed the ‘Latin American city’ as a homogeneous object and what are their limitations? What are the challenges of discussing the capitalist production of urban space in Latin America from the current logics of the racial regime? Is it possible to think about the socio-spatial organisation of cities in Latin America through the analytical category of coloniality? How have black and indigenous theorists thought about this same production, and what are the analytical keys? And since the debate on racial capitalism still predominantly belongs to the English-speaking world, how useful is it as a theoretical tool for understanding Latin American urban dynamics?

Registration is free, but mandatory

Working languages: Portuguese and Spanish

Orgs: Luana Xavier Pinto Coelho (CES), Margarida de Cássia Campos (UEL) & Silvia Maeso (CES)