“It’s Not ‘Pé na Cova’, It’s Jardim Aulídia Residential Complex”: Territorial Stigma and Symbolic Re-signification in a Minha Casa Minha Vida Housing Estate in Açailândia, Maranhão, Brazil

Abstract

This article examines how residents of the Jardim Aulídia housing complex, developed under the Minha Casa Minha Vida Program in Açailândia, Maranhão, confront and reinterpret processes of territorial stigmatization. The study is based on an ethnographic investigation conducted between 2022 and 2024, employing floating observation, direct observation, interviews, informal conversations, photographic records, and the monitoring of messaging app groups. Starting from the observation that the neighborhood—popularly known as “One Foot in the Grave” (Pé na Cova)—is commonly associated with violence, danger, and social degradation, the article explores the strategies mobilized by residents to challenge such classifications. Drawing on the theoretical contributions of Erving Goffman and the notion of stigma readdressing, it argues that the valorization of the name “Jardim Aulídia Residential Complex,” the production of internal hierarchies, and the transformations made to the housing units function as mechanisms of social distinction and symbolic reconstruction of the territory. By highlighting disputes over representations of the lived space, the article contributes to urban and housing studies by demonstrating how territorial stigma is negotiated, displaced, and reworked in residents’ everyday lives.