Marginalising Statecraft
This thesis examines how political projects mobilise public policy as a strategic asset to reshape urban space and govern marginalised groups in São Paulo's Crackland. It shows how urban displacement, driven by these dynamics, redefines existing public policies and impacts the lives of those at the margins. In a context of intense public exposure and pervasive street-level bureaucracies, the thesis demonstrates that governance assemblages operate according to individuals’ social positions within the territory, influencing both their access to the state and their exposure to violence. Amid ongoing displacement, actors within security forces exploit these transformations to advance their own agendas, reshaping policy implementation through force. These processes affect everyday interactions between street-level bureaucracies and marginalised residents, producing material, existential, and territorial impacts that ultimately lead to their expulsion. The thesis also analyses how persistent police violence shapes perceptions of the state, showing that trust, mistrust, and distrust can coexist, while a residual hope in the state endures.