The notions of suburb and periphery have historically been used to describe precarious spaces, highlight urban problems and situate deviant behavior spatially. As urbanization processes have intensified, reproducing injustices and accentuating stratification and inequalities in cities, new meanings have been created to characterize their margins, particularly by those are understood as “peripheral” or “marginal”. In Portugal, these issues have only received some relevance since the 1970s and 80s, a period of strong suburbanization and urban growth. In this paper, we aim to analyze how peripheries and suburbs have been conceptualized by the Social Sciences over the last few decades in Portugal, also paying attention to the media, political and governmental narratives that exclusively associate these territories as place of poverty and danger. In addition, we will seek to debate the most recent approach to these notions, influenced by the new urban epistemologies that emerge from the growing affirmation of black and peripheral identities in the Portuguese post-colonial landscape. As part of the Pericreativity project, this paper starting on theoretical reflection and ethnographical fieldwork at Lisbon’s outskirts to think about the theme of peripheries beyond the apocalyptic and dystopian perspectives, proposing alternative routes of recognition that broaden the production of knowledge about the urban experience.

This presentation was made as part of the project Peripheral Creativities: youth, arts and public policies in segregated territories (PERICREATIVITY)” (2022.08993.PTDC), funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).

: periphery,suburban,segregation,epistemology,Portugal