Escuta Ocupação: arte do contornamento, viração e precariedade no Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This thesis outlines some existing or no more existing self-managed squats in downtown Rio de Janeiro. In 2008, I participated in a short experience as a resident, at Machado de Assis, a squat in the port area of the city, staying for about two months. Starting from this experience and from other "engagements" before and after, I seek to highlight which are the projects, contests and actors involved in such a context. After all, since Rio de Janeiro was chosen to host events such as the Pan American Games, Soccer World Cup and the Olympics, the city has gone through a series of interventions that result in new processes of occupation and use of the central city area. Regarding the poorest population, residing in this area, both gentrification, as financialization, now in progress, have led to some significant changes in terms of livelihood and mobility. This thesis seeks to understand the ways which the so-called precarious (workers in the informal market), through countless arrangements, forms of mobility, networks and contacts, seek to escape or circumvent what Walter Benjamin called state of exception and Giorgio Agamben pointed as bare life. We do not intend to highlight this condition as something surprising, but to realize what are the forces, arrangements and procedures triggered as ways of circumventing the indeterminacy situations which constitute this everyday.