Housing Shaped by Labour – The Architecture of Scarcity in Informal Settlements

Restoration of working activities originally performed
in the favela included the practice of sururu
fishing. Fishermen who were resettled in the housing
Vila São Pedro (in front of the favela) had only
to cross the street to reach the lagoon and work,
while women continued cooking the sururu in their
apartments, cleaning it in front of the social housing,
together with groups of other marisqueiras.
Sururu was sold in front of their new homes inside
improvised kiosks that soon appeared in front of
their official housing. Instead, for the fishermen
and marisqueiras who were transferred to the social
housing Santa Maria and Cidade Sorriso, the resettlement
implied traveling longer distances every day.
The later groups commute daily by bus a distance of
23 kilometres from the social housing to the favela
Sururu de Capote in order to work or to meet family
members and friends who now live in the Vila São
Pedro. The leader of the favela Sururu de Capote, who
now lives in Cidade Sorriso , claimed in an interview
with a local newspaper in 2013 78 that more persons
originally from favelas started to be involved in
criminal activities due to the lack of work opportunities
promoted by the peripheral location of the social
78 Gazeta de Alagoas.“Conjunto Cidade Sorriso Vira Pasadelo
Para Famílias,” Gazeta de Alagoas, March 3, 2013, acessed,
12 September, 2017,http://gazetaweb.globo.com/
gazetadealagoas/noticia.php?c=218862.
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