Daniel Sanfelici

Visiting Scholar

Daniel Sanfelici is a Visiting Scholar at the center and a doctoral student at the University of Sao Paulo (USP), Brazil. His current research deals with the recent changes occurring on the waterfront of Porto Alegre (Southern Brazil) as a result of large-scale property development and state policies designed to prepare the city for the next FIFA World Cup in 2014. He also considers the close connections being established in Brazil between the financial sector and housing markets as a fundamental background for understanding the rapid changes taking place in metropolitan areas. At the University of Sao Paulo, Daniel has participated in seminars and discussions about Marx’s and Henri Lefebvre’s works and their potential for interpreting present-day urban development. His main interests include the connections between crisis and urbanization; regional differentiations in the urbanization process; the effects of neoliberal urban policies; and the intensification of socio-spatial fragmentation in metropolitan areas.

Participating Years

2010–2011

Labor/Crisis/Protest

Labor processes and conditions of employment in almost all sectors of the economy and most of the world have been revolutionized over the last thirty years. Generally, the share of wages in gross domestic product has declined while the share taken by capital (finance in particular) has soared. The response (or lack of it) to these new conditions has been patchy, raising questions of the state of political consciousness and political subjectivity among affected populations. Where, many ask, is the outrage and why the lack of mass protest and mass movement?