Public organizations do not assume the leading role of their influence on territorial reconfiguration and they are unable to dictate their order in certain territories, which end up becoming spaces at the margins of the State. An example are the slums in Rio de Janeiro. However, the public organizations seem to be resuming their attention to their ability to act in territorial reordering. To analyze the way how these organizations interfere with the reconfiguration of spaces in slums, there is a need for investigating power relations, having in mind the fact that the territories are defined by and through power relations. Thus, this theoretical essay aims to propose guiding questions which enable us to investigate the way how action taken by public organizations in spaces at the margins of the State interfere with the power relations taking place there and, as a consequence, with the reconfiguration of territories in these spaces.
public organization; power relation; territory; slum
