New territorial and identitary configurations of the movement of the roofless in florianópolis

Nuevas Configuraciones Territoriales E Identitarias De Lo Movimiento de los sintecho En Florianópolis

Urban conflicts around housing have intensified in the last decade in Brazil. In Florianópolis, a medium-sized capital situated in the south of Brazil, the homeless movement achieved important victories through a strong organizational process. Under strong influence of the liberation theology, they formed an identity, calling themselves a popular movement, and their localities, communities, in opposition to the term favela (slums), with which territories inhabited by popular classes in Brazil are stigmatized. From the mid-1990s, the dwellers' associations experienced a gradual process of weakening, while non-governmental organizations became more central in those localities. Through the analysis of the struggle for housing and the organizational processes in a neighbourhood that emerged from them, we discuss about both the new territorial configurations and their actors' practice in those localities of the urban periphery of Florianópolis.