Derek Pardue

Human migration has contributed to urbanization in terms of infrastructure and cultural branding. Yet, many urban scholars and city administrations continue to frame migration as a set of "problems" to be solved. Rather than focus on border politics, I propose that an investigation into the spatial dynamics of occupation, presence and segregation produces more valuable analyses of the impact of migration on cites. I argue that the expressions and regulations of these spatial factors help determine the identity of a city and, in essence, make the city livable.

After the disastrous earthquake in Haiti in 2010, Brazil and its largest city, São Paulo, became a destination for not only Haitians but also tens of thousands of Senegalese, Congolese and other Central and West Africans. The visibility of these "new" africanos has affected the city in terms of religion, residential demography, expressive culture and economic production.

However, occupation and the making of place are frequently ephemeral. During the 9 months of fieldwork conducted since 2016, I observed and was told repeatedly that immigrant actions, whether related to employment, political organization or the most basic rights of residency, are extremely dependent on relationships forged with Brazilians. Migrant occupations are thus highly contingent.

My objective is to complete a book manuscript during the EURIAS fellowship. My contribution to the growing scholarship and activism around immigration in Brazil is to articulate spatial presence to narrative experience. I believe that a focus on contingency may hold certain lessons about not only migrant lives and human rights but also our overall understanding of how cities operate and how, in effect, humans produce space. Contingency is also a keyword in my choice of representation. In this project, I blur genres of text to produce ethnographically informed fiction in order to create a dialogue between interpretations of migrant belonging and urban social theory.