‘Security’ and private governance in São Paulo’s corporate centrality frontier

‘Security’ and private governance in São Paulo’s corporate centrality frontier

Details

Written by:

Gabriella DD De Biaggi

First Published:

22 May 2024, 3:04 pm

Tags:

‘Security’ and private governance in São Paulo’s corporate centrality frontier

How does the dissemination of private “security” agents and devices in Latin-American metropolises impact on preexisting segregation dynamics? Is it still relevant and appropriate to analyse these urban spaces in terms of the centre-periphery divide that characterised them throughout most of the twentieth century? And what are the connections between the emergence of new business centralities, filled with luxurious office buildings, and the reworking of policing and surveillance practices in these metropolises?

These are some of the questions that motivated the writing of my article ‘Security’ and private governance in São Paulo’s corporate centrality frontier, recently published for the forthcoming Urban Studies special issue on The New Private Urban Governance. In the article, I discuss the links between the transformation in centre-periphery relations and the changes in socio-spatial control in Latin America since the 1990s, when private “security” companies and public-private “security” policies started to expand rapidly in the region and around the world. More specifically, I debate the effects of the production of corporate centralities, represented as “safe” spaces for business outside the historic city centres, on the differential governance of urban space, and on the opening of new avenues for the prominence of private agents in urban governance arrangements in these metropolises.

For that purpose, I draw from empirical work carried out in São Paulo, Brazil, one of the region’s largest metropolises, and focused on a dynamic frontier of São Paulo’s Southwest Vector, a spatial axis that concentrates some of the highest posts for corporate command in Latin America. The frontier zone I examine marks the transition between these business centralities and the majority black peripheral neighbourhoods of the metropolis’ South. Thus, it constitutes a privileged space for the observation of the racialised aspects of both centre-periphery relations and differential policing practices. The empirical research carried out involved fieldwork, interviews with public and private “security” agents, the observation of meetings of the local Public Security Community Council (CONSEG), and the analysis of police statistics.

Based on São Paulo’s case, I seek to contribute to broader debates on securitisation, private urban governance and urban frontier dynamics, particularly regarding Latin America’s changing segregation patterns. In sum, my argument is that the differentiation of the “security” apparatus and of policing practices facilitates the reproduction of centre-periphery relations under new spatial configurations. That means that even if the region’s metropolises can no longer be described as an array of precarious peripheral neighbourhoods distant and relatively detached from the downtown areas, where elite residences, urban infrastructure and services are concentrated, the idea of a centre-periphery divide is not simply overcome. More than a distinction between the topographic positions occupied by different segments of the urban population, it is possible to think of “centre” and “periphery” in relational terms, as a spatialisation of relations of domination beyond a specific socio-spatial form. In other words, I suggest that central and peripheral territories are also reproduced based on racialised distinctions between the spaces that should be protected, and those against which such protections are mobilised.

Moreover, I argue that the centre-periphery frontier can be understood both as constituted by segregation and control mechanisms, and as an instrument for segregation itself, working as an operational dimension for the programming of differential forms of governance. That includes the selective dissemination of private “security” devices and services, which contributes to the construction of business centralities such as those of São Paulo’s Southwest Vector as “safe”, protected spaces, while also expanding the capacity of real estate and other corporate agents to subject urban space to their own rules and regulations.

Read the full open access article on Urban Studies OnlineFirst here.