14/03/2025
Author: Teresa Tiburcio Jiménez
Programme: Doctoral Programme in Information and Knowledge Society
Language: Spanish
Supervision: Elisenda Ardevol, Alberto Corsín Jiménez
Faculty / Institute: Doctoral School UOC
Subjects: Society
Key words: Auto-construction, Urban occupation, Brasil, Urban design, Right to the city, Peripheries
Area of knowledge: Information and Knowledge Society
Abstract:
This study investigates the role of auto-construction in contemporary urban transformation processes, taking as a case study an urban occupation located on the outskirts of the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo (Osasco, Brazil). This occupation, called Ocupação Esperança, has housed more than four hundred families since its establishment in 2013, who fight for their right to remain in this territory. By analyzing the self-construction processes, the study seeks to deeply understand the social, technological, and political dynamics that drive the creation and sustainability of these «urban ecologies,» which act as places of experimentation and epistemic creation. It is argued that auto-construction represents a sociopolitical endeavor that, through sociotechnical, epistemic, and political assemblages, allows the proposal and materialization of urbanism alternatives that challenge the logics of hegemonic urbanism in the peripheries.