Rightful squatting: Housing movements, citizenship, and the “right to the city” in Brazil

Zhang, Yue

doi:10.1080/07352166.2020.1749005

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…After seven years of this project, we can observe that even when people's individual circumstances remain important, collective conditions take priority and it becomes easier to mobilize groups. This is not a particularity of Solano, it can be noted in several other different experiences where social movements were involved, as is the case of São Paulo, a city in Brazil with a long-term history of housing struggles and collaborative self-managed projects (Lago, 2011;Stevens, 2019;Zhang, 2020).…”

Section: Squatting As Tactic For Political Transformationmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…The urgent necessity for housing is clearly the main motivation for most Brazilian squatters, even those in long-term relationships with social movements. A large number of people who squat to obtain housing were not previously politically engaged with organized housing and urban social movement struggles, although they were developing their own daily fight for survival, for housing and for other needs, which is also political (Zhang, 2020).…”

Section: Squatting As Tactic For Political Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Squatting as tactics for creative resistance and transformation: The experience of a Brazilian housing occupation

Canêdo¹,

Andrade²

2021

RHJ

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This paper aims to discuss the processes of resistance and transformation that take place in squats in Brazil and thus shed a light on potential innovative forms of producing and inhabiting the city that emerge from the articulation between inhabitants, social movements, university, activists, and public sectors in these spaces. This work is anchored in the case of a squat in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, which provides empirical data and engages it in dialogue with the right to the city. The paper proposes to analyze the experience of squatting in Brazil through three different dimensions of potential tactics for transformation: political, urban, and social. It draws from the authors’ years of active engagement with the squat and the accumulated research and teaching experience in the field of informal settlements in Rio de Janeiro. The paper aims to demonstrate that squats can be both seen and used as tactics for transformation which can lead to alternative forms of inhabiting the city that arise from insurgent and collaborative practices.

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Section: Squatting As Tactic For Political Transformationmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Squatting As Tactic For Political Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Squatting as tactics for creative resistance and transformation: The experience of a Brazilian housing occupation

Canêdo¹,

Andrade²

2021

RHJ

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“…It, therefore, builds on budding literature on urban land markets in the Global South (?????????) as well as the related literature on the determinants of urban informality and urban development (Zhang 2013;Post 2018;Nathan 2019;Paller 2019;Jaros 2019;Liu and Zhang 2020;Zhang 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Political Origins of Slum Growth and Segregation in Cities: Evidence from Urban Brazil

2023

Preprint

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Why are some cities more segregated along class or racial lines than others? In this paper, I explore causes of segregation across cities in Brazil. I first argue that both neoliberal economic reforms (1990s) and the era of social housing (2000s) were federal initiatives that had segregative effects. However, the partisan ideologies of local mayoral coalitions distort how federal policies impact the development of cities. Depending on how the timing of federal policies (i.e., critical junctures) coincided with mayoral coalitions that happen to be in power, cities became more or less segregated. I test the argument using a close-elections RDD and a panel survey of municipal governments. I find that social housing increased segregation overall, and this effect is magnified in cities governed by leftist coalitions. In contrast, during the neoliberal era, the effects of mayoral coalitions flips: Left-wing cities reduced segregation, while centrist and right-wing ones became more segregated.

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“…Added to this, and on the other hand, are the combined effects of new legislation harnessed by housing rights activists, pressuring the state to invest more heavily in social housing. With this has come a surge in occupations over the past two decades, with activists and the poor squatting vacant buildings in growing numbers throughout the country (e.g., Moura 2020;Zhang 2021).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Current research on these squats tends to paint a familiar picture: the occupants are united in struggle, resolute in their understanding and conviction that occupying vacant buildings or land is within their constitutional, legal, and natural rights (Earle 2017;Irazábal 2018;Kolling 2017;Mello 2012Mello , 2015Moura 2020;Wittger 2017;Zhang 2021). Given that most of this research is based on interviews and participant observation with movement leaders, including documents and materials produced by housing rights organizations, such consensus is not surprising.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Right to Occupy: Moral Economies of Occupation and Social Housing in Urban Brazil

Burdick,

Garmany,

Gurr

2024

Lat. Am. res. rev.

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Current research on Brazilian vacant buildings where squatters live tends to paint a familiar picture: the occupants are united in struggle, resolute in their understanding that squatting is within their constitutional, legal, and natural rights. However, drawing on new data from Rio de Janeiro, we argue that researchers have an incomplete understanding of this process. Our findings reveal considerable ideological variation among occupants regarding their rights to occupy abandoned property, including their understandings of private ownership versus the social function of property. In our analysis, we explain this ideological variation through what we call “moral economies of occupation.” Specifically, we focus on lived experiences of losing or being excluded from secure housing and the remembered role that the state played in that lived experience. This, we argue, is crucial for understanding why some occupants believe in their rights to squat while others doubt it.

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Rightful squatting: Housing movements, citizenship, and the “right to the city” in Brazil

Cited by 13 publications

References 52 publications

Squatting as tactics for creative resistance and transformation: The experience of a Brazilian housing occupation

Squatting as tactics for creative resistance and transformation: The experience of a Brazilian housing occupation

The Political Origins of Slum Growth and Segregation in Cities: Evidence from Urban Brazil

The Right to Occupy: Moral Economies of Occupation and Social Housing in Urban Brazil

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