Hygienism and urban form: a biopolicy of the evolving territory

Abstract

This work analyzes the evolution of hygienist thought as biopolitics in the Brazilian city, especially in terms of its influence on urban form. The historical perspective adopted here assumes that hygienism has never been overcome as an urban model but that it will evolve, adapting to new principles and techniques of action arising from social, economic, and political reasons. In this perspective, it is considered the hypothesis that, since the end of the 19th century, hygienism took on three incarnations due to its instrumentalization in urban policies, namely: sanitary hygienism (1890-1930), universalist hygienism (1930-1990) and environmental hygienism (1990-2020). The major health crisis of 2020 seems to indicate the end of a cycle and the beginning of another, whose contours are still hazy, but which we call here “virtual hygienism”, based on a prospection of some of its causes and effects.