Three forms of urban and racial segregation in Ponciá Vicêncio, by Conceição Evaristo

Abstract

The article analyzes three forms of urban segregation in the novel Ponciá Vicêncio (2003), by Conceição Evaristo: in favelas, prisons and prostitution zones. It is argued that this segregation is not only social but also ethno-racial and moral. In the stories of three characters who move from the countryside to the big city ”“ Ponciá and Bilisa in search of better conditions of life, and Luandi in search of his sister ”“ the segregations become evident and dialogue with the ideas of Célia Maria Azevedo (1987), Luiza Bairros (1995, 2000), Sueli Carneiro (2001), Vera Malaguti Batista (2004), Marilena Chauí (2008), among others. Thus, we can see the social and urban segregation of groups such as prostitutes, like Bilisa, restricted to the prostitution zones, or the black men imprisoned in the police station where Luandi works, as well as the maids that, like Ponciá, descend the slum or walk across the city to get to the house of their employers. In conclusion, Conceição Evaristo denounces, in Ponciá Vicêncio, a spacial hierarchy in the cities and a continuity of the racist logic of the colonial period after the slavery abolition, at the same time that she creates strong and complex characters that strain these borders.