Market under reform, city in transition: discourses, urban revitalization, and social exclusion at the Campinas Municipal Market

Abstract

 This research investigates the recent revitalization process of the Municipal Market of Campinas, focusing on the different disputes surrounding its renovation between 2022 and 2025. It seeks to reconstruct the critical space formed around the project by analyzing the criticisms and justifications put forward by its different publics (the Campinas City Government, market permit holders, the local press, and the City Council). Drawing on Boltanski and Thévenot’s (1999) pragmatic sociology of critique, the research addresses the following question: which repertoires of justification and critique are mobilized by these publics, and what do these repertoires reveal about the regimes of value at stake and the forms of critique to which they respond? This discursive mapping is articulated with the economic and social importance of the Municipal Market, situating the case within the context of the Metropolitan Region of Campinas (MRC), of which the city constitutes a key hub for economic, population, and investment flows. By exploring how the renovation is embedded in broader processes of regional urban reconfiguration, the research aims to contribute to an understanding of the disputes that shape contemporary urban interventions and their accumulation networks.