Places of resistance: the process of reprodutction of urban space in the context of sports mega events in Brazil - São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

In all the major cities of the world, fragments of space are chosen to receive capital injections in interest of some groups over others, using sports mega-events as a justification and signaling a fundamental moment in the process of reproduction of capitalism in contemporary times, which brings the conflict over space – as a place of appropriation and use and contrast of the space as reproduction of value and wealth. This work aims to analyze the conflict over the urban space in relation to housing and resistance of the residents of four Brazilian communities, two in the city of São Paulo and two in Rio de Janeiro, which were directly affected by the infrastructure and equipment construction for the 2014 World Cup and Rio 2016 Olympic Games. The proposed theoretical methodology is based on the analysis of the levels and dimensions of Lefebvre (2001, 2002), represented by the constant brunt between the local order or immediate level (the lived level), and the distant order (the institutions), mediated by the intermediate level (the city). The practical methodology that is applied is the application of directed interviews to the residents of the communities who were threatened with removal, both with those who managed to remain and with those who accepted the negotiations with the public power. It is hoped to discuss the resistances for housing within a historically produced context and assuming that the resistance process itself is the possible form found by many inhabitants of the metropolises, in the search for a utopia of transformation of the social relation and the way in which spaces are produced.