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Can an analytic map crafted to describe and explain urban marginality in the USA serve as a guide for research in cities in other countries? I argue that to correctly diagnose the causes and consequences of urban marginality in cities around the globe demands grounded, historical analyses of specific cases. Historical analyses will reveal that repression of the poor not only takes different forms across contexts, it is also produced and legitimized through different mechanisms. Contextualized revisions to any general analytic map of urban marginality are an essential prerequisite to arriving at appropriate prescriptions for change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Assuming that embodiment is a cultural marker in identity politics and that dance is an especially highly charged identity marker for Brazilian culture, this article explores the racial and gender politics of Casa Samba, an African American-directed samba school in New Orleans that aims to perform "authentic" Brazilian culture. The analysis of this cultural performance space is both ethnographic and autobiographical, since the researcher herself has been a dancer with the troupe for more than five years. An ethnographic and embodied analysis of Casa Samba reveals that the group's definition of Brazilian authenticity is contingent on global understandings of Brazilian culture and the local cultural performance space of New Orleans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]