Insurgent Urbanism: alternative modes of production and appropriation of urban space in the outskirts of Sao Paulo

TLDR: In this paper, the authors present a research on new forms of appropriation of public space through actions that are self-managed and crosscutting to government arrangements, led by decentralized groups, organized so anarchic and horizontal, flexible and situational, which has been called in Brazil as "urban collectives".

Abstract: This paper presents a research on new forms of appropriation of public space through actions that are self-managed and crosscutting to government arrangements, led by decentralized groups, organized so anarchic and horizontal, flexible and situational, which has been called in Brazil as "urban collectives". Because of theirs critical stance to the status quo and limiting forms of access to urban, these groups propose alternative ways to use, look, plan, discuss, build and inhabit the city, we call: insurgent urbanism. Therefore, this paper seeks to understand the appropriation of public spaces by these groups in the outskirts of Sao Paulo, on the margins of large investments primarily cultural. We presents some mapping of these groups and their actions in the North, East and South zones of the city, which have significant and increasing number of micro urban interventions with strong political character, but which are still not known because they are off-axis "center - west", recognized as a creativity axis. In these periphery areas, the key element is the functionality and the potential for organization to fight, argue and claim for public policy for the communities of the suburbs. The aim is to understand its legitimacy as a social organization, and the public sphere concepts tied to the emergence of these groups in Brazil. By mapping the alternatives that has been made in these areas, one can compare them with the actions developed in the most valued areas of the city, identifying conceptual approaches and significant differences in these actions. The historical context in which the "urban collectives" arised in Brazil is from the 1990s, in a productive post-restructuring period, which resulted in the deepening socio-spatial inequalities in Sao Paulo. Also during this period, the construction of shopping malls and gated communities grew; there was the spread of the culture of fear, with expansion of buildings with prison walls, private security and traffic controls, fragmenting the city and aggravating inequality between extremes of the population. At this time, the excluded population manifests itself, creating a real "civil war for places", ie a clash between the city "militarized" versus the resumption of public space by the population, especially through cultural movements in the periphery. The popular uprisings, spontaneous interventions or ephemeral architectures, ie, micro urban interventions represent demands and emergencies, with the motto citizens as key player in the city's production. Network communication and increased access to information influence largely social organizations from that time, becoming the main tool used by the collectives for their articulation. One should note that the forms of collective action currently differ from those of the last century, trade unions, for example. Self-managed, decentralized, with horizontal hierarchical, allowing certain nomadism, they use short-term and tactical actions, to reach long-term changes. Thus, this research aims to provide conclusive data not only for the understanding of these experiences in the peripheral areas of Sao Paulo, but mainly to provide support to the urbanist generates solutions that really meet the demand of the population, respecting cultural differences of each region.

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V.02 p.259
Maria Carolina Maziviero
insurgent urbanism: alternative modes of Production and aPProPriation of urban sPace in the outskirts of sao Paulo
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7480/iphs.2016.2.1241
17th IPHS Conference, Delft 2016 | HISTORY
-
URBANISM
-
RESILIENCE | VOLUME 02 The Urban Fabric |
Morphology, Housing and Renewal | Land Use and New Planning Ideas
TOC
INSURGENT URBANISM: ALTERNATIVE
MODES OF pRODUCTION AND
AppROpRIATION OF URBAN SpACE
IN THE OUTSKIRTS OF SAO pAULO
Maria Carolina Maziviero
Universidade São Judas Tadeu
This paper presents a research on new forms of appropriation of public space through actions that are self-managed and crosscutting to
government arrangements, led by decentralized groups, organized so anarchic and horizontal, exible and situational, which has been called
in Brazil as “Urban Collectives”. Because of theirs critical stance to the status quo and limiting forms of access to urban, these groups propose
alternative ways to use, look, plan, discuss, build and inhabit the city, we call: insurgent urbanism. Therefore, this paper seeks to understand the
appropriation of public spaces by these groups in the outskirts of Sao Paulo, on the margins of large investments primarily cultural. The aim here
is to understand their legitimacy as a social organization, and the public sphere concepts tied to the emergence of these groups in Brazil. In these
areas, the key element is the functionality and the potential for organization to ght, argue and claim for public policy for the communities. Thus,
this research expects to provide conclusive data not only for the understanding of this experience, but mainly to provide support to the urbanist
generates solutions that really meet the demand of the population, respecting cultural differences of each region.
Keywords
insurgency, comprehensive planning, appropriation of public space, urban collectives
How to Cite
Maziviero, Maria Carolina. “Insurgent Urbanism: alternative modes of production and appropriation of urban space in the outskirts of Sao Paulo”.
In Carola Hein (ed.) International Planning History Society Proceedings, 17
th
IPHS Conference, History-Urbanism-Resilience, TU Delft 17-21 July 2016,
V.02p.259, TUDelft Open, 2016.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7480/iphs.2016.2.1241

V.02 p.260
Maria Carolina Maziviero
insurgent urbanism: alternative modes of Production and aPProPriation of urban sPace in the outskirts of sao Paulo
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7480/iphs.2016.2.1241
17th IPHS Conference, Delft 2016 | HISTORY
-
URBANISM
-
RESILIENCE | VOLUME 02 The Urban Fabric |
Morphology, Housing and Renewal | Land Use and New Planning Ideas
TOC
INTRODUCTION
The year 2011 was marked worldwide on account of the popular uprisings, a phenomenon of political, social and
technological dimensions that took place in several cities around the globe. In Brazil, in June 2013, thousands of
people took to the streets in a multifaceted protest, which began against the increase in city bus fares, but then
transmuted into other claims. From the visibility of these public demonstrations, the idea of collective groups
have spread geometrically by Brazil, notably guided by intervention works in the urban space, with character of
social denunciation. For their critical view to the status quo and limiting forms of access to urban, these forms of
association have led their actions guided by the motto of the Maker culture “Do-it-yourself”, defending the citizen
role to produce, collaboratively and with creativity, critical attitude and autonomy, the transformation of reality.
This research, still under development, presents an analysis of the recent actions of urban collectives in São
Paulo that through alternative proposals to use, look, plan, discuss, build and live, is shedding light on issues
of sociability and collective construction of the city. Taking as its starting point the emptying of public space,
from the Brazilian historical and political context of the 60s to 80s, the paper aims to provide critical apparatus
for creating a narrative that explains the Brazilian urban dynamics since the struggle for urban reform to the
production and appropriation of the city from the 2013 demonstrations. We hope to contribute to enlarge the
understanding of the contemporary city, revealing the relationship between technology and territory, and its
importance to point out positive alternatives to the cities.
FROM THE EMpTYING OF pUBLIC SpACE TO THE RISE
OF “URBAN COLLECTIVES” IN BRAZIL
In Brazil, during the 1980s, there was a deepening of socio spatial inequalities, due to the policy of the 70s and
the global restructuring process. The modernization of the period known in Brazil as “developmentalism”, in the
50s, ended up being strangled by tightening the external debt and the ination intensied as never happened
before. The rise in international interest rates since 1979, and the problems of external debt management marked
a growth never seen in ination in the country, and continued to grow year by year. This period became known in
Brazil as the “lost decade”, characterized by the decline in investment and GDP growth, the increase in the public
decit, the growth of external and domestic debt, and the inationary rise. It should be emphasized that the
country was under military government.
The military dictatorship in Brazil began with the coup of March 31, 1964, resulting in the removal of the
President, João Goulart, and taking power Marshal Castelo Branco. This coup established a military dictatorship
in the country, justied by the fear of a communist threat. Such governance conditions constituted obstacles to
the formation of a national project that cared about the common interests always rejected. They became also
and mainly an obstacle to formation of a modernity project, which include the formation of a rule of law and
citizenship as support of a democratic project country. Moreover, the political culture of the military regime
transformed the meeting in the public space in a threat, transforming this in a subversive act. Thus, the closing
and emptying of public space have contributed to the interruption of the democratic construction process in the
1960s and 70s.
In last years of this regime, Brazil had several problems that, added to the strengthening of social demands since
the mid-1970s, have culminated in the development of a wide range of grassroots movements. Thus, from 1974,
the regime’s legitimacy crisis reected the struggle for the return of the rule of law and promoted the beginning
of the debate on the human rights issue, making the military government impracticable. In 1983, a campaign
for direct elections for the presidency has started and, even if the constitutional amendment was defeated in
Congress, a president was elected indirectly and a new way of governing the country has started at this point.

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Maria Carolina Maziviero
insurgent urbanism: alternative modes of Production and aPProPriation of urban sPace in the outskirts of sao Paulo
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7480/iphs.2016.2.1241
17th IPHS Conference, Delft 2016 | HISTORY
-
URBANISM
-
RESILIENCE | VOLUME 02 The Urban Fabric |
Morphology, Housing and Renewal | Land Use and New Planning Ideas
TOC
Finally, in 1988, the Congress passed a new constitution for Brazil, applicable to the present day and tried to erase
the traces of the military dictatorship, establishing democratic principles in the country.
The aggregation of the urban social movements in favor of the struggle for democracy in the 1980s happened,
however, at the same time the country was undergoing a worsening of living conditions in large urban areas.
The economic recession coupled with the de-industrialization and the expansion of tertiary activities, the
impoverishment of the working classes, the removal of part of the middle and upper class out of the center,
and the wide dissemination of crime, accentuated inequality in cities like São Paulo. Over the 1970s, the city
experienced an intense process of building the slum, and this became the spatial expression of the inequalities in
Brazilian society. The growth rate of slum dwellers, for example, between the years 1973 and 1980 in São Paulo is
higher than the growth rate of the whole city in this period.
“The signicant concentration of poverty in the Brazilian metropolis has as its expression a dual space: on the one
hand, the formal city, which focuses public investments and on the other, the absolute counterpoint, the relegated
informal city of equivalent benets and growing exponentially in urban lawlessness that is exacerbating the social
and environmental differences. Insecurity and lawlessness are their genetic components and contribute to the
formation of urban spaces without attributes of urbanity.”
1
In this context, the emergence of popular movements, especially in the suburbs, had as decisive agenda the ght
for improvements in living conditions against the growing process of exclusion of urban benets. The articulation
of residents claiming their right to citizenship has permeated different fronts of struggle, such as regularization
of illegal settlements, movements for basic infrastructure, for health equipment, etc. These movements, which
are multiplying from the 1970s, were closely related to problems of production, distribution and management of
commons means of consumption necessary for everyday life. Citizenship claimed by penalized and outraged by
the instabilities of a society still in the constitution of a commonwealth, could actually expand up anchored mainly
the constitutional rights of equality and participation. The foundation of the People’s Councils, in the 80s, as a
legitimate representative of the population, has embodied the consolidation of an effective space for negotiation
as opposed to a confrontational policy.
When the globalizing neoliberalism hit the country in the 1990s, the Brazilian State joined the international
recommendation of minimal government, giving more space to the ideology and privatist policies
2
, and declining
to invest in infrastructure or in social care policies. The introduction of neoliberalism caused an increase in
concentration of the elite income, restoring, on the world stage, the privileges of the groups that had diminished
their power and income after the Great Depression and World War II. Locally, given the Brazilian historical-
political context, neoliberal input and economic opening have resulted not only changes in the production
process, management and organization of labor, but in the built space, further accentuating the socio-cultural
contrasts
3
.
In this period, the number of shopping centers increased signicantly, as well as gated communities, private
security and trafc control. The establishment of a fragmented city resulted in disqualication and abandonment
of public space, deepening segregation and reducing people to a simplied life in homogeneous cores. The
mechanisms of control and surveillance, the bars and the walls separating the private property of the street “create
private places within the public city”4. The street, place of meeting and dialogue between different, is fundamental
to building a culture of tolerance. This detachment tends to subtract positive aspects of urban sociability, which
are established in the common living in contact with the other in the sphere of public life. For Sennett
5
, the
impossibility of meeting with the unknown and the difference, a condition created in intramural microcities, “the
person takes the chance to enrich their insights, experience, and learn to most valuable of all human lessons: the
ability to call into question the conditions established in his life”
6
.

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Maria Carolina Maziviero
insurgent urbanism: alternative modes of Production and aPProPriation of urban sPace in the outskirts of sao Paulo
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7480/iphs.2016.2.1241
17th IPHS Conference, Delft 2016 | HISTORY
-
URBANISM
-
RESILIENCE | VOLUME 02 The Urban Fabric |
Morphology, Housing and Renewal | Land Use and New Planning Ideas
TOC
However, in the late 1990s, there is a resumption of reconstruction and reinterpretation of public spaces in large
Brazilian cities, especially in São Paulo, this time from the perspective of diversity and difference as liberating
forces against the remnants of authoritarianism and conservatism. There is a redenition of the struggle
for democracy and citizenship through cultural and political initiatives of different orientations and nature,
now stripped of previous narrative models, universalist and totalizing, absolute certainties
7
. For Harvey
8
, in
postmodernity nothing eternal congures any human activity. In its bases are fragmentation and ephemerality,
which constitute the chaos and some unreasonableness dictated by multiple, by nomadism and difference.
It is in this perspective that arise new forms of appropriation of public space by self-managed and crosscutting
to government arrangements, led by decentralized groups, organized so anarchic and horizontal, exible and
situational, which has been called in Brazil as “Urban Collectives”. Armed with a conceptually oriented vocabulary
to propose more imaginative, sensitive and dynamic ways for urban living, Collectives appropriate themselves
from the city, opposing to the territory making process from the projection of fear and violence
9
. Thus, the
popular uprisings, the resumption of the streets and the redenition of public space appear as a search for the
right to the city and for a more human city, inclusive, safe, healthy, and with livable streets
10
.
THE INSURGENT CITY: STRATEGIES OF TODAY’S URBAN COLLECTIVES
According to Castells
11
, the technological revolution, focusing on information technology, began to reshape the
material basis of society and therefore the urban space. It is through the use and appropriation of Internet tools
and other new technologies of information and communication that Collectives articulate and make politic, that
is, there is a powerful link between the so-called “cyberspace” and the real world (physical and territorial space)
in the forms of action and organizing collective. The network logic dened collaboratively and without evident
leaders, it drives the production and actions of these groups.
This form of grouping, although typical of the work of young visual artists, has been conducting interventions
in urban space. This urban character, however, differs from the expression traditionally used by hip-hop culture.
One can see, then, that the form of collective action is signicantly different from those of the last century, mainly
due to the postmodern condition as a new version of the experience of space and time, according to Harvey
12
.
This wave of space-time compression implies an inevitable acceleration of modi vivendi, that is, there is a volatile
and ephemeral character in production, labor processes, and even the ideas. Volatility is its ow and thus they
reject the idea of projects in the long or medium term. There is a certain nomadism within these structures;
so the participant can move to another group when the project is done, essentially because a Collective is not
congured by its members but by its actions. The ephemerality and fragmentation lead these unions, because they
understand immediate action and tactics are required in the context of public intervention. They differ, therefore,
from the 60s and 70s actions, when groups were organized in cooperatives or unions, guided strictly by closed and
well dened agendas.
“There is not much difference from the point of view of the multitude and all the other movements that are
born of the needs of basic or fundamental desires to live and produce. But there is another element that is the
uniqueness. When the multitude moves, it is never simply a mass, it is a plural wealth of life questioning elements.
Of course, here comes an organizational problem. There is a great unity problem, of movement’s coordination,
among many singularities. But this is also the richness, the beauty of the process which we are living.”
13
The rhizome and nomadic character of Collectives allows an artist/activist belonging to more than one group
simultaneously for different projects. This feature, added to its form of independent, enables unusual connections
for co-creation, through juxtaposition and collision, which redraw other possible dimensions of existence,
highlighting the concern with otherness and other worlds that coexist. In the fragmented and splintered world,

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Maria Carolina Maziviero
insurgent urbanism: alternative modes of Production and aPProPriation of urban sPace in the outskirts of sao Paulo
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7480/iphs.2016.2.1241
17th IPHS Conference, Delft 2016 | HISTORY
-
URBANISM
-
RESILIENCE | VOLUME 02 The Urban Fabric |
Morphology, Housing and Renewal | Land Use and New Planning Ideas
TOC
it is possible that all the worlds happen without privilege one over the other
14
. Therefore, his open constituent
process causes an explosion of singularities, far from the modern conception of a unique way as a form of
resistance to the dominant powers, or rather, the modern concept of unity. Distance themselves from the setting
of a party or any xed structure of organization, even if this uninterrupted open relationship of singularities in
motion - that make up the multitude to Negri
15
, composes strategies to undermine authoritarian proposals using
common action opposite to crisis. For Negri
16
, narrowing between being social and political power is due to the
conditions given by the nature of the contemporary crisis, the transition to political postmodernity, although not
resulting in a unit.
Spontaneous interventions or ephemeral architectures, ie, purposeful urban micro-interventions promoted by
these groups represent demands and emergencies led by the citizen as an essential agent in the city production
dynamic. It is called tactical, guerrilla or insurgent urbanism, which suggests other perspectives to the city and
its contemporary everyday problems. Understanding the city as an open platform to constantly be made from the
perspective of the public interest has guided this mix of actions, behaviors and atypical meanings to develop a
distinct spatiality of those provided by law and by traditional practices. The regulatory framework that provides
for the use and occupation of the land - and public space, often end up cluttering the emergence of innovative
initiatives for the creation and use of built space. This is because it understands the space from the unique
perspective of the modern world, entrenched in strong convictions, and does not include the dialectic caused
by actions that realize the space from the multiplicities of possible layers. Often, government practices tied to
atavistic bureaucratic processes favor the abandonment cycle and activity restriction of public open spaces,
helping to maintain fear and urban violence within the city.
Precisely because of the aspect that challenged the prevailing cultural and spatial model, Collectives approach
their actions to the hacker culture, or hacking, understood as the creation of a smart shortcut that results in a new
resource for a tool. The term, consolidated in the 60 to set computer experts involved in a type of programming
subculture, meets the contemporary activist interventions in the public space of inventive character, and fast
alternative to catalyze civic coexistence.
Collectives act to scramble existing codes, producing a movement around them and, from nomadism perspective,
they escape from territoriality. In many ways, their tactics are answers to the slow process of city transformation
guided by the ofcial structures, because the Collectives work from the real urgency. They operate from a small
adaptation of public space, invasive or not, and assuming that the street is the space of all, these groups generally
do not ask for authorization or permission of the local government for their interventions. So, these reclamation,
redesign, or reprogramming of public space occur on a small scale and seek exible and reversible solutions, or
more adjustable conditions for inevitable change, considering that places are not static.