No.53 Changing Repertoires of Housing Mobilisation: Struggles to Stay at Home During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Valesca Lima 

Abstract

In this study, Valesca examines how social movements focused on the right to housing have responded to the challenges of the Covid-19 Pandemic. It particularly sheds light on new modes of contestation generated and expanded by housing groups as producers of political innovation, knowledge, resistance, and transformative possibilities. To this end, Valesca compares two cities, Fortaleza (Brazil) and Lisbon (Portugal). The research provides a fresh approach to the study of changes in social movements and their roles in pandemic responses. This contribution attempts to overcome the existing limited cross-continental approaches to semi-peripheral/peripheral countries. The study shows that groups focused on the right to housing were particularly active in three main areas: anti-eviction campaigns, new ways of organizing protests, and the creation/expansion of solidarity networks and new alternative futures.