O sol na cabeça, de Geovani Martins: a literatura do morro / Geovani Martins’s The Sun on My Head: The Slum’s Literature

Resumo: Este artigo analisa o livro O sol na cabeça, de Geovani Martins, a partir da renovada perspectiva temática sobre o morro – a favela – efetuada pelo escritor ao abandonar a visão estereotipada do favelado que por muito tempo esteve presente na literatura brasileira. Em seu projeto de escrita, Martins se apropria da oralidade dos moradores do morro para desconstruir e descentrar a palavra literária, inserindo-a em uma nova sintaxe, única e inaugural, que, consequentemente, exige do leitor um novo pacto de leitura, mais agressivo e participativo. Com base nesse pacto de leitura, este artigo será dividido em três momentos: o estudo do descentramento da palavra literária, a diferença entre sociedade e comunidade e, por último, a questão do outro enquanto diferença, e não semelhança.Palavras-chave: literatura do morro; sociedade periférica; Geovani Martins.Abstract: This paper analyzes Geovani Martins’s work The sun on my head, from a renewed thematic perspective on the slum – the so called favela – performed by the writer when leaving aside a stereotyped view of the slum-dweller that for a long time has been part of Brazilian literature. On his writing project, Martins takes possession of the slum-dweller’s speech in order to break down and decentralize the literary word, inserting it in a new syntax, unique and inaugural, that, consequently, demands a new reading pact from the reader. A more aggressive and participative pact. Based on this reading pact, the paper is divided into three moments: the study of the literary word decentralization, the difference between society and community and, at last, the issue of the other as difference, not as similarity.Keywords: slum’s literature; peripheral society; Geovani Martins.

Poverty no longer compounded daily: SDI’s efforts to address the poverty penalty built into housing microfinance

The network of slum dweller federations known as SDI has innovated a form of local financing derived from the collective savings of urban poor groups. This addresses three shortcomings of conventional microfinance: its inability to reach very low-income people, its limited role in community mobilization for longer-term social change, and its constraints in terms of leveraging subsidies from the state and the market. SDI’s national and international urban poor funds have been used, among other purposes, for providing basic services and upgrading homes in informal settlements. Further, SDI’s model of federating urban poor communities and their funds at city, national and international levels has enabled mature federations, capable of financially sustainable projects, to cross-subsidize learning and precedent-setting projects in which full cost recovery is not feasible. This produces an outcome whereby the combined portfolios of all the national funds are able to match financial outflows with inflows. At the same time, the federations that co-manage these funds and the projects that they finance are able to escalate the production of social capital amongst the urban poor and to generate impact through changed relationships with government.

The rise of humanitarian architecture

I started feeling – and subsequently expressing – that I did not want to be that kind of architect practising that type of architecture, as I had been previously trained. I wanted to work in the villages for the non-rich. I wanted to serve not the conventional but the alternative client, the un-served client: the villager, the slum dweller, the poor, and the marginalised.Why should architects be involved in humanitarian work and the often-complex projects needed to deal with the recovery of post-disaster emergencies? How can the design profession contribute to the longterm reconstruction processes needed to ensure the effective rebuilding of vulnerable communities after disaster?