Port of the Past, Port of the Future

Abstract

This chapter investigates the clash of timescapes in the Port of Santos. It begins by looking at Valongo, which is the historic birthplace of the Port of Santos, the home of the oldest shipping terminals, and the last stop of the first railroad in Brazil. The underlying goal of the transformation of Valongo was to change the neighborhood from a space of production to a space of consumption—a goal where progress meant erasing the “old economy” of physical and industrial labor and replacing it with a new mode of production tied to knowledge work and other kinds of immaterial labor, such as call center work and research and development for the oil industry. As a consequence of this transformation, the meanings of “labor” and “capital” were changing. As the working industrial Port of Santos became increasingly important to Brazil's export economy, it was simultaneously being redeveloped as a historic downtown district that would appeal to tourists and postindustrial workers in the new Petrobras office complex and the surrounding neighborhood of hotels, condos, and office buildings. This created an irresolvable contradiction: industrial, working-class Santos was an outdated relic but the port was always chugging along as Brazil's most important hub for the export of the commodities that were fueling its growth.