Description
This paper looks at the colonial constitution of urban technologies of control of racialised populations and spaces by exploring the relationship between the UK and Latin America, in the rise of the modern nation-states. The paper recovers early Latin American thought on ‘colonial capitalism’ (Bagú 1949) to argue that Latin America continues to be part of a transnational ‘colonial enterprise’ (Prado Jr 1945), where ‘land’ (i.e. natural resources) is indivisible from social domination (Mariátegui 1928). To explore the relationship between land and people, and Britain and Latin America, the paper focuses on the outcome and rationale behind the destruction of tenements in Brazil in the wake of the 20th century. The paper explores how colonial legislation on social behaviour and on migration, and a new and privatised housing and sanitation system helped reframe ideas about race to the new time, beyond Brazil. Furthermore, the paper challenges the view that there are no direct connections between Latin America and Britain by showing how a close border regime in Europe and British commercial and ideological interests shaped Brazilian modernity, maintaining the capitalist-agrarian character of the Brazilian economy, and fulfilling George Canning’s (1824) dream of domination of Latin America.
