This document presents a project proposal to study patterns of governance in the peripheries of metropolitan cities. It will focus on how key institutions and the growing social diversity shape resident subjectivities and social relations. The proposal outlines the research questions and problems. In recent decades, peripheries have seen rising incomes but also growth in informal economic activity and state/non-state violence. The proposal aims to explore how these changes influence resident attitudes, practices, and identities through ethnographic research in a working-class neighborhood of São Paulo.