My name is Marius, and I am a new 4+4 PhD student at the Department of Anthropology. My project, which holds the preliminary Danish title “Belonging i nedgangstider”, will focus on how Northeast Brazilian migrants in the metropolitan area of São Paulo relate to deindustrialization.  

Considered to be one of the main demographic phenomena in the newer history of South America, São Paulo received millions of so-called Nordestinos in the middle of last century who came to work in the rapidly growing industrial sector. However, since the last part of the 1980’s Brazil has been heavily impacted by industrial decline, or tertiarization, as it is often called in the academic literature.

Through the conceptual frame of belonging, I wish to study how this migrant group, millions of whom are still living in the beforementioned metropolitan area, grapple with the economic changes. I will be attentive to how relations of belonging might be both affective, material, and multi-situated. My point of departure will be the ABC-region of São Paulo, often labelled the industrial center of the country in the past. I look forward to working closely with my main supervisor Anne Line Dalsgård, who has many years of research experience in Brazil, as well as learning from the many competent migration scholars at the department.