Ten years of organized housing squats in Belo Horizonte: radicalizing the struggle for housing and articulating activisms against neoliberal urbanism

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to evaluate ten years of an important cycle of struggles organized by social movements in the city of Belo Horizonte. Over this period, the movements underwent transformations, expanded their agenda beyond the right to housing, and adopted strategies of an expanded struggle for the right to the city, opposing the recent neoliberalization process of the municipal management. These strategies have mainly taken the form of organized squatting. During the period, characterized by a hybridization of urban struggles, the pattern of relationship between the movements and the institutions was significantly changed and started to be based on direct action, institutional action, and everyday action.