%0 Journal Article
%T Resisting, Claiming and Prefiguring: Movements for Dignified Housing in S£¿o Paulo
%A Stella Z. Paterniani
%J Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy
%@ 2321-0281
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/2277976018778625
%X The struggle for the right to dignified housing in S£¿o Paulo, Brazil, waged by low-income black families organized in housing movements, is a political struggle that intertwines three dimensions: resisting, claiming and prefiguring the future. This article discusses ¡®Occupation Mau¨¢¡¯, an occupied building in the city centre of S£¿o Paulo. More than 200 families that live in this occupation, for more than 10 years now, resist against gentrification processes, claim public policy from the state and imagine a new life for themselves¡ªin that building, with those families, in that region of the city. These families have already obtained a major political achievement in resisting, claiming and imagining their future by connecting the struggle for a dignified present to the one for a dignified future. This achievement sees in the state an agent of both death and life. The state performs death when it evicts homeless families; yet, it is also the object of struggles as an agent of public policy. The struggle of urban housing movements in Brazil is thus a life-and-death struggle
%K Urban land politics
%K land occupations
%K housing movements
%K race
%K S£¿o Paulo
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2277976018778625