Peripheral placemaking: insurgent urban epistemology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26439/limaq2026.n017.8470Keywords:
urban co-production, insurgent epistemology, peripheriesAbstract
This paper proposes the concept of peripheral placemaking as an insurgent urban epistemology, grounded in space-production practices that emerge from the favela. Based on the study of Heliópolis (São Paulo), it is argued that the periphery is not merely an object of state intervention, but a territory capable of generating its own theories, methodologies, and rationalities. Local initiatives–self-management of public spaces, distributed learning, co-production of the commons, urban prototyping, and institutionalized networks–reveal that making the city implies producing situated knowledge. The analysis shows that the favela shifts the paradigm from prescriptive urbanism to a use-based urbanism, where learning, deciding, and building are inseparable processes. More than participation, it implies a redistribution of agency and a reconfiguration of the urban imaginary. It concludes that peripheral rationalities can be scaled without losing territorial connection, opening space for pluriversal, dignified, and collectively produced cities.
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