Children's territorialities in a Brazilian right-to-housing movement

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper discusses children's experiences in the context of a social phenomenon of a Brazilian right-to-housing movement known as urban occupation. Our discussions are focused more specifically on the Rosa Leão occupation, located in the Izidora Region, in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. Based on a research developed between June 2019 and April 2021 with a group of about 19 children (2–14 years old), this paper sought to identify the children's territorialities in this spatial struggle, which occurs through circulation and play in a collective process of reterritorialization. Connecting critical perspectives from childhood studies, this investigation confronts the idea of hegemonic childhood, breaking with a stigmatized view of children’s experiences in poor Latin American cities. It also collaborates with contemporary discussions that assume an analysis of the relations of domination and focus on a historicized, critical, and plural perspective of children’s rights and the right to the city, based on the concreteness of the subjects’ experiences in disputed territories in the midst of urban crisis.