Peripheral Citizenship

“Daniel McDonald’s Peripheral Citizenship is a terrific account of how progressive activists, Catholic liberation theologians, and grassroots organizers together placed the demands of Brazil’s burgeoning urban peripheries at the center of a pioneering democratization process. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand progressive Catholicism, right-to-the-city movements, and the fleeting decades in which radical visions of democracy took center stage in Latin America’s most populous country.”—Brodwyn Fischer, Professor of Latin American History and the College, University of Chicago

"Daniel McDonald deftly explores the ways in which low-income residents of São Paulo’s urban periphery mobilized to claim new social rights from the 1970s–1990s. This insightful book has broad implications for our understanding of urban Latin America."—Bryan McCann, Chair in Ibero-American Literature and Culture, Georgetown University

"Peripheral Citizenship allows us to envision the adaptive and resilient ways that Brazilian activists on the periphery used the physical, spiritual, and ideological spaces open to them to improve their situation. A needed and most welcome addition to the literature."—Stephen Andes, Professor of History, Bushnell University