Fragmented Sociabilities: An Urbanistic Approach to Cultural Expressions, Public Spaces, and Agency in Rio de Janeiro Part 2 Dissertation 2026 Clara Veronez Cardoso De Montfort University | UK This dissertation explores the spatial and cultural con?gurations of key areas in Rio de Janeiro, a Brazilian city marked by fragmentation and class ?rati?cation, and the relationship between its territory and movements of urban resi?ance. It focuses on two music-related cultural expressions that originated in the city's favelas: the Rodas de Samba and the Baile Funk. The topic highlights the value of informality and peripheral culture in the development of contemporary society, serving as powerful drivers of public agency and resilience.The argument revolves around the role of urbanism in shaping social practices and how the dynamics of private and public shapes movements of resi?ance through expressions of culture. The public agency and urban resilience methods were also raised as potential transformative forces in the complex social fabric of Rio.Regarding ?ndings, the de?nition of this web of relationships as symbiotic added a duality to the theme that better describes the intricacies of this urban sy?em. The permeability between urban design and the culture of the peripheries is de?ned as mutually in?uential, with both being active agents in opposite directions. While formal urbanism shapes expressions of culture into capitali? norms, movements of resi?ance bend these norms through the appropriation of spaces and cultural practices.This research contributes to the under?anding of marginalised cultures as agents of transformation in the context of fragmented cities by defying the capitali? logic and its spatial dynamics of power. Tutor(s) Arunima Ghoshal