Outside now: A postcard from quarantine in downtown São Paulo, 2020

Abstract

We discuss the way the early quarantine period during the coronavirus crisis illuminated some aspects of previous daily life in downtown São Paulo. Changes in our surroundings and withdrawal into confinement elicited a new relationship to the senses and to imagination. With that, it became apparent the degree to which the free use of these faculties is repressed by violence and inequality, as they are usually manifest in the city center. We explore the idea that some of the changes in social interaction, as they became widespread during the pandemic, were already prefigured in the relationship between social classes in this part of town. We then discuss the dependency this has on the spacialization of social inequalities in the urban fabric.