Taking as an empirical reference the housing movement of the São Paulo downtown, the objective of this article is to analyze the meaning of occupations of unoccupied real estate promoted by actors of this movement in the central area of the city. We try to demonstrate that the role of the social movements as actors who place themselves in the position of challengers of ideas, discourses and hegemonic values in society. By the speech of the activists engaged in this mobilization, it is also discussed how the right of living in downtown became a political agenda gradually built by popular sectors. The method of the study is predominantly qualitative, as it consisted in theoretical review, data collection of documents, journalistic material, and interviews with activists. As a conclusion, we suggest that the main meaning of occupations in the central areas consist in the questioning of the hegemonic model of urbanization in Brazilian society, which historically moved the poorer strata toward the peripheries of the cities.
Housing movement; Occupations; Conflict; Right to the city; Urbanization
Fonte: Para os anos de 1997 a 2007,