Abstract
Providing a close examination of the strategy of building occupations, the chapter gives particular attention to the question of legality and the sophisticated discourse of rights that movement leaders have developed to defend their actions. While the act of entering and taking over abandoned buildings breaks the civil and penal codes, the housing movements draw on the constitutional right to housing and the concept of the right to the city enshrined in the City Statute to bestow legality upon occupations. The legal ambiguity of occupations is critical, and the chapter draws on debates around civil disobedience to highlight how the movements also use the act of occupation to draw attention to the illegality of the state’s own actions.
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Notes
- 1.
At the time, the ULC was the largest and most visible of the housing movements acting in the centre of the city. Since then, it has suffered a number of splits and former leaders have gone on to form the Fórum dos Cortiços, Movimento de Moradia do Centro (MMC) and Movimento Sem Teto do Centro (MSTC).
- 2.
Rio de Janeiro’s centrally located favelas show that that this has not always been the case in Brazilian cities.
- 3.
Interview with Anderson, 26.06.07.
- 4.
Ibid.
- 5.
Interview with Pedro, 18.09.07.
- 6.
Interview with Adana, 06.07.07.
- 7.
Conversation with Edson Miagusko, PhD student, Department of Social Sciences, University of São Paulo, 10.12.06.
- 8.
Interview with Adana, 06.07.07.
- 9.
Movement members put the split down to ‘political differences’ between different leaders, but this was probably a euphemism for personality clashes and rivalries. Since the matter was a sensitive one, I did not pursue this line of enquiry.
- 10.
Interview with Kelly, 28.11.14.
- 11.
Interview with a representative of Gaspar Garcia, 28.11.14.
- 12.
Interview with a representative of Gaspar Garcia, 28.11.14.
- 13.
Interviews with Tristana, 26.03.07, and Adana, 06.07.07.
- 14.
Interview with Daiana, 28.06.07.
- 15.
Interview with Adana, 06.07.07.
- 16.
Interview with Leon, 07.06.07.
- 17.
Interview with Daiana, 28.06.07.
- 18.
Interview with Arturo, 05.12.14.
- 19.
Interview with Arturo, 05.07.07.
- 20.
Interview with Wanda, 24.07.07.
- 21.
Interview with Anderson, 26.06.07.
- 22.
Interview with Benjamin, 05.06.07.
- 23.
Interview with Leide, co-leader of a highly active regional movement, 26.06.07.
- 24.
Interview with Edna, 09.10.07.
- 25.
Interview with Nora, 18.10.07.
- 26.
Interview with Henrique Pacheco, 08.07.07.
- 27.
This argument is put forward by French social movements with reference to Article 35 of the Declaration des droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen, which prefaces the Constitution of 24 June 1793 (Hayes 2007: 303). In the case of Brazil, the ‘right to resistance’ (a term more commonly used by Brazilian jurists than civil disobedience) is not explicitly permitted in the 1988 Constitution. However, legal scholars argue that the right to resist unjust laws is upheld by the Constitution, since this right is essential for the protection of other primary rights such as those to life, human dignity and well-being (Buzanello 2005; Farias 2000; Sadek 2001).
- 28.
Interview with Gaetano, 08.06.07.
- 29.
Interview with Adana, 06.07.07.
- 30.
Source: Email reproduction of FNRU letter distributed to the Forum Centro Vivo web group, 22.02.07.
- 31.
Interview with Leon, 07.06.07.
- 32.
Interview with superintendent of social housing, Bette França, 26.07.07.
- 33.
The municipality of São Paulo does not have a large property portfolio in the city, and as such, it is not targeted directly by the occupation of empty buildings. However, the municipal government is drawn into negotiations when the movement occupies privately owned buildings in the municipality and demands their expropriation.
- 34.
Interview with Ivana, 01.06.07.
- 35.
Interview with Lourdes, 30.06.07.
- 36.
Interview with Maria Cláudia Brandão, a CDHU employee, 07.08.07.
- 37.
Interview with Fernanda Leão, 12.10.07.
- 38.
Source: www.sp.unmp.org.br. Accessed 01.09.08.
- 39.
Interview with Ivana, 01.06.07.
- 40.
Interview with Walter Abrahão, 15.06.07.
- 41.
Interview with Sergio Mendonça, 01.08.07.
- 42.
Mendonça’s candid account of the Prestes Maia negotiations was surprising. It should be noted, however, that he is something of an outsider within the housing secretariat, as an academic in the field of law and public prosecutor invited personally by the state housing secretary to work as his chief of staff.
- 43.
Interview with Walter Abrahão, 15.06.07.
- 44.
The programme had to be modified to allow ‘popular associations’ to apply for this type of funding—in its original formulation, this credit scheme was designed for building contractors.
- 45.
Interview with Raquel Rolnik, 17.07.07.
- 46.
Interview with Grazia de Grazia, 13.08.07. Her words echo those of Ricardo, interviewed 4 October 2007, who was appointed to a ‘confidence post’ in COHAB during the Marta Suplicy era. He stated, frankly, that ‘if the movement doesn’t occupy, absolutely nothing will get done. You can have discussions about a particular building […] for two years, and still they [the government] won’t do anything’.
- 47.
Interview with Nabil Bonduki, 05.06.07.
- 48.
Interview with Eduardo Trani, 23.07.07.
- 49.
Interview with Grazia de Grazia, 13.08.07.
- 50.
Interview with José Eduardo Cardozo, 30.07.07. Cardozo later became Justice Minister, and Attorney General, and defended President Dilma in her impeachment trial.
- 51.
Source: Email reproduction of FNRU letter distributed to the Forum Centro Vivo web group, 22.02.07. This message is reiterated in a recent research programme on centrally located housing undertaken by Instituto Pólis with Oxfam, entitled ‘Moradia é Central’. www.moradiacentral.org.br. Accessed 27.11.15.
- 52.
Interview with Fernanda Leão, 12.10.07.
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Earle, L. (2017). Occupying the City. In: Transgressive Citizenship and the Struggle for Social Justice. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51400-0_7
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