Periphery struggles To to adapt à precariousnessde alimentar

According to the thesis, hunger is a form of violence resulting from the process of urbanization and territorial policies

In a country that ranks among the world's largest food producers, hunger can seem paradoxical to those less attentive to the workings that drive certain societies. Based on this supposed contradiction, a doctoral thesis recently defended at Unicamp's Institute of Geosciences (IG) delves into the complex relationship between hunger, urbanization, and socio-spatial and racial inequality in Brazil. Livia Cangiano Antipon's research uses the city of São Luís, Maranhão, as a case study, given Maranhão's historical position among the states with the highest rates of hunger and risk of hunger in the country. The work won the university's 2025 Outstanding Thesis Award in the Humanities and Arts.

The researcher's interest in the topic has its roots in her childhood. "I saw children scavenging for leftover food from the food stalls at Ceasa [Supply Centers] in São Paulo. These images influenced my subjectivity and the way I saw things," she recalls. The issue took on academic form in 2009, during her undergraduate studies, after she met researcher and IG professor Marcio Cataia. This meeting led to a 15-year advisor-advisor relationship, encompassing undergraduate, master's, and doctoral studies.

Hunger as a subject of study also permeates Cataia's career, recalling his postgraduate studies at the University of São Paulo (USP), when his advisor at the time introduced him to Josué de Castro, a leading figure on the subject. "[For Castro], hunger is not limited to a mere territorial division of abundance and scarcity. He even saw it as a 'weapon of war,' a reality sadly evident in contemporary conflicts," says the professor.

In his research, Antipon applies Milton Santos's two-circuit theory of the urban economy. According to this theory, there is an upper circuit, dominated by big business and characterized by the use of cutting-edge technologies, and a lower circuit, formed by smaller-scale activities and simpler technologies, focused on survival.

The study shows that, despite its precariousness, the lower circuit also offers a space for innovation and resilience. "What I found was a living system that adapts daily. I saw notebooks with months of credit, neighbors who shopped together to take advantage of promotions, people who divided cooking oil to sell in plastic cups to fit customers' budgets, merchants who tracked online promotions to pass on discounts, and community kitchens that organized collective purchases. There is creativity and solidarity networks, but these are no substitute for public policies," he states.

Cataia adds: "The problem is that these strategies depend on credit and are sensitive to any price fluctuation or income drop. The structure that creates hunger remains."

From history to fieldwork

The first part of the thesis explores the historical and urban development of São Luís, linking this trajectory to the presence of food inequalities. "I realized there were no studies connecting São Luís's urban history to the issue of hunger. This gap needed to be filled," explains Antipon.

The author explores the differences in the food situation of black people and women in the early formation of the city, through the first urban expansion and the emergence of food marketing networks, to urban fragmentation with the expulsion of populations and hunger.

The research also reveals that urban transformations not only reconfigure the landscape but also directly impact social and economic relations, generating an unequal food system. This fosters a struggle for survival in the peripheries, which reveals itself as a powerful form of resistance, something that can be seen in community movements, associations, and the "politics of everyday life" adopted by individuals and collectives.

Antipon analyzes hunger as a form of violence resulting from the process of urbanization and territorial policies. The researcher also challenges the perspective colorblind (an English word used to refer to color blindness, but which literally means “color blind”) — which neglects the racial dimension in interactions and policies — by revealing how the racial issue occupies a central place in the dynamics of reproduction of capitalism and hunger, especially among women and black and brown populations in the periphery.

The second part of the study was based on fieldwork, involving firsthand observations and interviews conducted in various parts of the capital of Maranhão. Antipon analyzes the "political economy of the city"—a set of practices, relationships, and structures that define who eats, what they eat, and how they access food—in areas of popular food commerce, fairs, markets, small grocery stores, and street stalls, establishments that make up the so-called lower circuit.

Among the most striking accounts, the researcher highlights an encounter with a Black woman between 50 and 60 years old who saw selling food as a way to achieve personal freedom. This woman also spoke openly about her food situation, without disguise. "She explained and taught me deeply what freedom means, what it means to create freedom in a place for oneself, as a Black woman, as a subject. At the end of the interview, I offered her a plate of food, as I did with all the interviewees, and then she explained that she only had rice to eat at home, even though she had spent the day selling food. It's the production of an economy born of hunger," she concludes.

Public politics:
yesterday, today and tomorrow

Based on the research findings, Antipon emphasizes the importance of public policies in combating hunger. "In Maranhão, expanding the number of popular restaurants, from 8 to 169, made a difference. There are still a high number of hungry people, but we're no longer talking about more than half the population," he observes.

Cataia sees the thesis as a fundamental tool for developing public policies in Brazil, recalling the Zero Hunger program, launched at Unicamp, which successfully removed the country from the hunger map in 2014. Both the advisor and the student advocate that programs like Bolsa Família, the Food Acquisition Program, and the National School Feeding Program be strengthened and adapted to local specificities. "Public policy needs to understand the territory. Doing the same thing in different places doesn't yield the same results."

The central merit of the thesis, according to the professor, lies in "combating the invisibility of hunger and the popular economy, which is often called informal and underestimated." By revealing who these people are, where they are, and how they organize themselves, the work provides support for the adoption of more effective policies. "Bringing the issue to the table is already an important step. Knowing that we've already implemented policies that worked and that we can do them again is crucial," he states.

For the researcher, the work contributes to the "already existing movement for change" in the way we think about racial issues in Brazil. Antipon advocates for the production of new studies that take racial issues into account, especially in the humanities, and that recognize racism in everyday situations, such as those related to food.