ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the mapping of the slums—and the widespread dissemination of the results—has leveraged personal, social, and political transformations within the communities. It presents the city of Belo Horizonte and background about its low-income communities, including a discussion of the official process to recognize its existence and the population's difficult fight against daily risks of expulsion. The chapter considers how such an experience may have contributed to changing the image and symbolic location of the slums in the social imagery. It represents an effort to explore the potentialities of social, symbolic, and spatial transformation of the city through cultural mapping processes, artistic practices, and their intercession with community mobilization and activism in the slums of Belo Horizonte, progressing towards the constitution of new forms of micropolitics and engagement. The mapping process, oriented to local objectives of residents, was construed as a tool to access the multiple and complex cultural and symbolic realities of the communities.
