Self-construction, collective effort, and self-management. A study of the debates in Brazil since the 1970s.

Abstract

This work presents the academic debates on housing production modes in Brazil, focusing on processes that involve self-construction, collective building efforts, and self-management. To this end, we present a historical overview of at least two periods connected to practical experiences: the first, from the 1970s to the 1990s, where research sought to establish new forms of representation of peripheral cities through an understanding of self-construction and collective efforts linked to housing production, the emergence of social movements, and the work of technical advisors formed during this process. In a second period, between the 1990s and 2000s, the previous debate is revisited through emblematic experiences involving self-management in some areas of the country. Although the concepts presented have distinct definitions, they are interconnected in the trajectory of participatory processes involving social movements and technical advisors, working in an interdisciplinary field alongside low-income populations. The organization of these periods around varied concepts and practices may provide keys to a new framework of legibility that captures complex connections, with significant consequences for the reorganization of the field of forces between social movements, urban reform, the state, and the real estate market, shaping a new diagram of relationships between housing production and the struggle for the appropriation of the city.