Meia-água: producing space and kinship in an irregular housing subdivision in Rio de Janeiro

As owners of a land plot, the poor families living in Rio de Janeiro’s loteamentos perifericos (“peripheral housing subdivisions”) have evolved their own unique ways of using their land, often with scant regard for building regulations. This is the case of the meia-agua, a rectangular single-story backyard construction with a mono-pitched roof. At first sight, it seems people build meia-aguas simply as a means to lower construction costs, but in doing so, they offer an insight into the socio-spatial hierarchies and kinship dynamics that shape the production of space. Thus, as the family move from the meia-agua at the rear to the true house at the front of the plot, the former may be abandoned completely, turned into a workshop for small-scale economic activities, or provide a means to divide the land. People would also allow their married children and ageing parents to build or occupy meia-aguas, so that they can take care of one another without compromising each other’s privacy. In this case, the land plot has a centripetal effect on the “configuration of houses”.