Conflict management among residents of the urban peripheries of São Paulo (Brazil): the case of the Tangará condo in Guarulhos during the covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

This article discusses conflict management and access to justice in the peripheries of São Paulo, based on the case of a social housing complex located in the city of Guarulhos, in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. Built by the Minha Casa Minha Vida Program, this complex was one of the territories studied in two editions of a research held by the Federal University of São Paulo on the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on the urban peripheries of São Paulo, conducted in 2020 and 2022. The methodological approach used in both editions of the research involved interviews with residents, participant observation, and the elaboration of field diaries, discussed by the team in periodic meetings, in addition to the use of quantitative instruments. During the fieldwork, the management of conflicts among the residents of the complex has become a main topic, especially due to the changes in the forms in which the complex manager dealt with neighbourhood conflicts between 2020 and 2022, and the shift of the location of the drug selling point, which operated in a more visible site in 2022. The unavoidable presence of the drug selling point and neighbourhood and family conflicts formed a tangle of latent tensions that penetrated the everyday lives of the residents and, from time to time, erupted in verbal threats and physical violence. However, we did not find lasting conflict management mechanisms, either organised by the community, the local drug dealers, or the State, except those related to police work, labour courts and prisons, which have become a symbolic element of the everyday life of the residents of urban peripheries in São Paulo.