Papers > By author > Mcnelly Angus

The city was the site of many of the transformations witnessed under neoliberalism, and processes of proletarianisation and urbanisation were etched into urban space in the Global South in profound ways. In Latin America, cities expanded rapidly through the construction of informal settlements: favelas and mocambos in Brazil, the colonials populares and proletárias in Mexico, callampas in Chile, barriadas in Peru and the ranchos in Venezuela. Political sociologists have stressed the inseparability of these informal cities to their formal counterparts and have studied the quotidian forms of politics in these spaces. However, considerations of class and political economy more broadly are more often than not absent, a priori contextual features as opposed to constantly shifting dynamics that are engraved into urban space. Moreover, whilst there have been extensive studies on the neoliberal city, the link between cities and progressive governments remains understudied in the Anglophone literature. I propose that reintroducing the Marxist category of class into the analysis allows us to better understand urban social movements and their connection with progressive governments in Latin America. The category of class draws a line between the political economy of progressive governments and the Latin American urban reality, which continues to be characterised by informality and precarity. It also reveals why the neoliberal Right does not have an answer to the current political and economic crises across the continent and where the potential for future points of struggle are located.