Teresa Meade. “Civilizing Rio”. Reform and resistance in a Brazilian city. 1889-1930.

University Park: Penn State University. 1997.

Nineteenth century, time of urban evolution of Rio, with features of europeization of the
city, urban improvements, but with spatial segregation of poor inhabitants.

Objective: Analyze conflicts and explain why and how different social classes, organized in
neighborhoods associations, labor unions, etc, to fight with the city and federal government
from 1890 to 1930. Grievances were for housing, against rising cost of living, lack of jobs,
for a productive and healthy life, etc. She wonders about the common causes/outcomes
these protests had. On that basis, she also seeks to know what we can learn from them in
terms of how collective actions work.

Why Rio? Because it’s a reflection of the broader conflicts Brazil was facing at the midst of
this historical moment of social and political evolution (the Republic, the emancipation,
European immigration, urban reform and search of progress), and the city, besides of being
the capital, contained the social classes that were in opposition here.

Overall, these riots where a struggle over who would live in the city, where, and how well
they would live. They were resisting the spatial molding of the city fostered by the state,
and by doing so they demanded a better share of urban prosperity.

The rural-urban migration lies behind of the process she addresses. After the abolition,
thousands of poor peasants and former slaves migrated to the city since the lack of effective
livelihoods of the countryside to end up living in poverty in the cities. There they were
employed and employed themselves producing manufactures at a small scale for the
domestic market. In the meanwhile, in Brazil prevailed an export-oriented economy, on
which planters and foreign investors benefited, a group of interests that this cross-class
coalition of urban residents was unable to battle effectively since they could not form a
politically powerful urban labor movement since they were all competing for the allocation
of the few jobs in the cities. Most of them were out of the working class or were employed
of a relatively regular basis, being a sort of lumpenproletariat, urban poor, or laboring poor.
This explains that the locus of their demands were over issues of consumption (fare,
housing, food costs), rather than point-of-production struggles (wages, working conditions,
union recognitions). Based on the works of Manuel Castells and Diane Davis, she sees
these struggles over collective consumption issues as the axis of the urban-related demands,
this is over where the people live, eat, move about, and enjoy themselves in a city.

The physical shape of the city is the result of its function and the role the play in the
economic system, as Castells argues, so the configuration of the space, including the
displacement of popular sectors, responded to the very same purposes. That’s why, as she
states, “in Rio the individual’s place depended on his or her class and ability to wield
economic and political power” (p. 12).
She also seeks to examine under which circumstances these protests took place. In this
regard, she recognizes that Brazilian case fits within what it has been defined as “pre-
modern protests”, that unlike the highly organized labor-related struggles in the form of
strikes, and planned over consumption-related grievances. However, she argues, that even
in spite of capitalist modernization, these kind of collective actions prevailed alongside the
labor-related, even being more prominent. In that sense, she argues: “This distinction,
between premodern and modern forms of protest, needs to be abandoned, certainly to
understand collective protest in Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, the existence of distinctly
different forms, or types, of protest is dubious in any society.” (p. 13) These protests
entailed features from both the old and new forms of mobilization, and are related to critical
concerns in relation of how the government delivers its duties in relation to its citizens.
They prevailed still as a form of expression, even in highly capitalist modern systems, and
usually alongside modern forms of resistance such as the strike. In Rio during the First
Republic these forms were underdeveloped. In any case, as she notes based on Foucault’s
studies about sickness and health, civilization and madness, the realm of social policy is
embedded in multiple institutions at the same time.

Closing lines in the introduction: “My intent is to sketch the intersection where, during the
First Republic, the demands of the working people of Rio de Janeiro for a decent living and
a reasonable share in the city’s prosperity collided with the priorities Rio’s elite had set for
their capital” (p. 16). In a certain way, based on Charles Berquist’s calls for the creative
fusion between local history and global structure, she seeks to show how at the local level
urban poor challenged an urban project intended to shape Rio in function with its role in the
world system.

Theoretical influence: British Marxist social history, (Critical still about the concept of pre-
modern protests) Tilly, Hobsbawn, George Rude, E.P Thompson.

Central elements of period and the conflict:

 1889-1930, period, Rio, capital of Brazil during Old Republic, after abolition of
monarchy, an emerging commercial center, and “the site of tension between
opposing social classes over the course of Brazil´s future”
 Riots not only represent conflict among opposite classes, also represented tensions
and conflicts over who, how, where they would live the city. Conflicts was over
intervention in the spatial molding of Rio, and the fight for a urban prosperity.
 Unlike the European or United States ‘cases, Brazilian riots are against material
consequences of foreign capital intervention, and urban effects of Brazilian
dependency in the global market.
 Post-abolition of slavery period with subsequence rural migration to the city.
 During Old Republic working class was weak, small, not fully skilled, similar to the
lumpenproletariat of Marx, not full-time employed.
  Due to the casual character of working class his grievances were more oriented to
the issues of consumption (fare, food, health, housing, taxes), rather that production
struggles (wage, working conditions, union recognition)
 Based on Manuel Castells, she sets that consumptions issues are connected with
spatial and social developments of cities, collectives actions are motivated not only
by economic and political aspirations, but also by spatial issues (spatial centrality in
the collective actions). “Castell´s analysis of the relationship between the struggle
over collective consumption and the result allocation of space serves as the key
ingredient for understanding Rio de Janeiro as an urban realm” (p. 15).
 Distinctions between pre-modern social movements (for consumption issues) and
modern social movement (for productive issues and structural changes), she suggest
abandonment of this dual model because: first, coexistence of both forms of social
movements, not only depending of the stage of capitalism evolution, second,
dialogue interactions between productive and consumption struggles, third,
domination of system is expressed in several spheres, not only in the production.
Healthy, religion, school, all of them. Action for the system and apply over the city
are justified with scientific discourses.
 Based also on the work of Charles Bergquist, her complement to previous works
about Rio, is establishing a connection between local history and global structure.

Chapter 4:

 Rio´s mobs were motivated by complex issues, beyond superstition (1904 revolt
against vaccination). They fight against a city that was applying urban renewal
project aimed by export interest, dependent of foreign capital. They react against a
project of development, and the project of civilization that waned to be applied over
them.

Chapter 5:

 In the 1913 Campaign Against the High Cost of Living there was an intersection
between labor unions, organized workers, and urban poor people, class-
consciousness anticapitalist program with the spontaneous demands of residents of
Zona Norte against prices and services. “A less differentiated class of community
residents” fed working class struggles, who recover some previous grievance of
them in the General Strike of 1917.

Conclusion

 What were the victories and losses of the struggles throughout Old Republic? Some
of them were short-lived consequences, just relevance when are appreciated in a
historical perspective. “After 1905, especially in the years of heightened street
 disorders from 1909 through 1915, protestors won and lost demands in almost equal
numbers.”
 Organized protest or spontaneous actions? What were more successful?
 Street protest, radical and spontaneous actions proved to be a viable method even
for organized workers and trade unions, who adopted tactics and strategies of
preexistent political culture of masses.
 Mass demonstrations was the way through isolated urban poor acted politically and
gained class consciousness.
 Trade unions inattention of main issues about living conditions and price rises,
concerns adopted by working class.
 Vargas “addressed the broad range of consumer demands the Republican elite had
failed to meet. That is his legacy.” (p 182)
 She suggest understand struggles of urban working – class, not only from
productive sphere, but also from its struggle out of the mill, in the street, in the
neighborhood, from the community, fighting for consumption goals, like allocation
of urban space, integral rather than tangential, issue of class struggle.
 Previous analysis had ignored these movements for several reasons: 1. Considered
that these were pre-modern movements with shorter effectiveness. However, she
considers works of Charles Tilly and how “pre-modern” protest gave way to
organized movements seeking for political goals and modern effects. But only after
this evolution, because effects of pre-modern movements are not as tangible as
strike and modern ways. She sets that these are not “pre-modern protest”, that “they
are as integral part of capitalist system as the urban structure that has spawned, etc”,
2. Dichotomy premodern/modern, based in the simple definition of working class
over the production issue “This narrow conception of the class struggle derives first
from an economic and reductionist definition of working class – that it is somehow
only defined by an individual´s relationship to work or, even more narrowly, by the
individual as a producer of surplus value.” (p. 187). People don´t live in a society
based only in the selling the labor force, but also base in the distribution of land,
housing, labor and capital.
 The key players of collective action in Rio during the Old Republic were the
community, a group broader than industrial working class (including women,
children, immigrant, white and mulattos, etc).