For the decolonization of urban occupations: "the new factory is the neighborhood"

Abstract

The illusion of an egalitarian space under peripheral capitalism is expressed in the reformist terms of the "city for all". We understand it here as a colonized inclusion that intends to subject popular resistance to the disciplinary norms of systemic urbanism. This text starts from the decolonial notion of the Global South to rethink popular occupations in Brazil. It aims to contribute to the critical review of the urban reform project. From a methodological point of view, it contrasts subordinate processes of participatory urban planning with resistant initiatives of urban and rural collective self-production. Popular occupations are understood as an affirmation of the marginalized and proper identities of the inhabitants of the South. As real conquests of the oppressed in colonized and dependent countries, such territories reproduce self-control over social and political life. Traditional communities concerning the land and its produce also exercise this control. The results indicate the potential of the notions of the Global South to rethink popular occupations as urban praxis of collective and decolonial insurgency. Such countercurrent resistances struggling for freedoms and rights suggest considering the regional references of the South in the academic reflections on the peripheral space.