Repossession in small university cities in the Brazilian Northeast: reflections based on the Obelisco Square in Redenção, Ceará

Abstract

The first 15 years of the 20^th century witnessed an intense expansion of higher education institutions in Brazil, particularly in the countryside, with small cities then hosting especially federal universities and institutes. This movement has generated large urban repercussions, which impact the structures, the daily life, and the social production dynamics in the urban space, with student youth presence reaching, in particular, the urban public spaces. In the countryside of Ceará, in the Brazilian Northeast, the presence of a public federal university that is both interiorized and internationalized and has more than five thousand undergraduate students, out of which 25% are international migrants, impacts two small cities – Redenção and Acarape. This paper analyzes the territorial dynamics of the city of Redenção, focusing on Obelisco Square, regarding the upcoming university youth and the local population that already resided there, between the second semester of 2017 and February 2020. Regarding methodology, we developed a qualitative ethnographic research, also using a search for secondary data and interviews with two original residents who are also university students at the UNILAB. The analysis has revealed new territorial dynamics, which take place through the creative occupations done by the university youth and, even more, the emergence of this youth as significant urban and political agents. Furthermore, micro and nano conflicts across the Square, which take on urban forms and acquire a political nature, evidence inequalities, segregations, and structures potentially seen as normal and invisible, which are being socially contested by these emerging agents.