[en] Lifetime measurements of excited states of the light N = 52 isotones Kr-88, Se-86, and Ge-84 have been performed, using the recoil distance Doppler shift method and VAMOS and AGATA spectrometers for particle identification and gamma spectroscopy, respectively. The reduced electric quadrupole transition probabilities B(E2; 2⁺ → 0⁺) and B(E2; 4⁺ → 2⁺) were obtained for the first time for the hard-to-reach ⁸⁴Ge. While the B(E2; 2⁺ → 0⁺) values of Kr-88, Se-86 saturate the maximum quadrupole collectivity offered by the natural valence (3s, 2d, 1g_7/2, 1h_11/2) space of an inert Ni-78 core, the value obtained for Ge-84 largely exceeds it, suggesting that shape coexistence phenomena, previously reported at N less than or similar to 49, extend beyond N = 50. The onset of collectivity at Z = 32 is understood as due to a pseudo-SU(3) organization of the proton single-particle sequence reflecting a clear manifestation of pseudospin symmetry. It is realized that the latter provides actually reliable guidance for understanding the observed proton and neutron single particle structure in the whole medium-mass region, from Ni to Sn, pointing towards the important role of the isovector-vector rho field in shell-structure evolution. (authors)