Abstract
The main purpose of this article is to present the centrality of the body as an orientation in thinking for the urban studies, based on the theories of performativity by Sara Ahmed, Karen Barad and Judith Butler. Firstly, our assumptions asserts the importance of the embodied lived experience, both from the epistemological and the method points of view, to understand the theoretical-methodological and intellectual power of thinking the body in a materialistic, phenomenological and feminist intersectional perspective of the urban space. We assume that the positivist approach remains in the practice of urban studies, forming a historical barrier to new research conducts. As a counterpoint to such a model, we present the idea of spreading the body through a queer orientation, understanding the body itself as something that is capable of orienting (or disorienting) space, even with the daily precariousness experienced, differentially, by gendered, racialized and sexualized bodies. Our perspective aims at processes of transformative resistance, including for the interpretation of daily life, to uproot the positivist traces in the hegemonic theories about urban space.
Keywords:
Performativity; Body; Urban Space; Epistemology