ABSTRACT
It is impossible to conceptualize the Global South without adopting space, even if metaphorically, as a fundamental parameter and organizing category. Such space, however imagined, carries a contradiction within itself, which is expressed in the very concept, for if “global” establishes continuity, thus joining together countries and regions that otherwise (as when we speak of continents) would be kept radically apart, “south” clearly marks separation and opposition, pointing to a necessary structural difference regarding the “north”. To be sure, disruption here may take a number of shapes, from, say, denunciations of economic inequality to defenses of cultural authenticity, but what is important to note is that the idea of the Global South is incompatible with any notion of an abstract res extensa or homogeneous space. This is methodologically interesting because it allows us to imagine a tensive poetics of space, sites constituted by contradiction and imbued with negativity. Through a detailed reading of Carolina Maria de Jesus’ texts, this chapter investigates one such locus, the favela as a particularly relevant Global South space. It describes four spatial movements that, as we will see, generate a circle of negativity.
