Espaço público ‘revitalizado’ e contradições: enobrecimento de visitação e antienobrecimento no bairro de Jaraguá, Maceió-AL (Brasil)

Abstract

Gentrification is a socio-spatial-cultural process that can be understood as the transformation of meanings (usually central and culturally relevant) in urban localities based on market principles. The gentrification rationale involves the cultural appropriation of spaces based on capital flows and it normally leads to social exclusion and expulsion of local low-income populations from ‘ennobled’ areas. This paper discusses a kind of gentrification that has occurred commonly in Brazil and which is aimed at attracting tourists and other types of visitors to historic revitalized districts, a phenomenon known as ennoblement visitation. Such a process took place in the city of Maceió-AL, in the Jaraguá neighborhood, and it was influenced by funding originated from the Inter-American Development Bank, channeled through the Banco do Nordeste do Brazil. This paper aims to clarify the contradictions explicit in the Jaraguá case.