Right to the city, territory, and social movements: the legacy of the Dom Hélder Câmara Urban Occupation in Paiçandu - Paraná, in the struggle for housing

Abstract

The objective of this article is to describe the historical struggles of the residents of the Dom Helder Câmara Urban Occupation for the right to the city in Paiçandu (PR). It is understood that, to discuss the movement of appropriation and domination of urban space, it is crucial to address the territory and the process of territorialization. The premise is that the right to the city is a claim about urbanization processes, how cities are made and remade, with the aim of making society more just and equitable. On the other hand, cities are a tangle of territories, characterized by power struggles, which reflects in the possibility of occupying urban buildings that do not fulfill their social function, especially by families in social vulnerability, as a way to meet basic needs such as housing that are denied by the public authorities. Thus, this research is qualitative, exploratory-descriptive, based on non-participant observation in the mentioned Occupation and bibliographic research, as well as secondary data. The results highlight that the occupation, guided by discipline and organization, persists amid attempts to criminalize the movement, judicial disputes over property repossession, and, above all, the usurpation of its right to the city and housing.