Remontando o lugar: alteridade, experiência e narrativa no bairro do Alecrim

Abstract

In 2017, the Grupo 25 Investimentos presented various architectural and urban plans to redevelop the central area in Alecrim, a neighbourhood in Natal. Confl icts emerged from such interventions, e.g. the removal of street vendors, demonstrating the power entitled to the private sector to decide, design and execute actions that would affect the urban form, life and memory of the neighbourhood and the city as a whole. However, the facts have shown that the Town Hall favoured the discourses of business interests while neglecting social problematics involved on the implementation of such projects. This paper aims to elaborate a narrative in opposition to the hegemonic visions disseminated by Grupo 25. The specifi c goals include detailing the plans and the creation of a dominant narrative that followed, by systematizing newspaper articles. Then, to discuss, in the fi eld of Urban Planning, the context in which such processes are inserted, drafting possibilities of resistance to those logics, taking as reference works by Henri Lefebvre, Ermínia Maricato, Carlos Vainer and Paola Berenstein Jacques. Finally, the consensual narrative is deconstructed by using micro narratives from local experience. To accomplish so, erratic experiences were performed and posteriorly represented by means of urban montages, according to the works of Jacques and Georges Didi-Huberman. After the production of montages, it was possible to draw new relations and pursuit urban analysis motivated by the disestablishment of preconceptions and the apprehension of place complexity.