Rehoused but unhomed: The effects of Portugal’s Special Rehousing Program as represented in Pedro Costa’s Juventude em Marcha

Abstract

Abstract This article analyses Pedro Costa’s 2006 film Juventude em Marcha (Colossal Youth) vis-à-vis Portugal’s Special Rehousing Program, especially as it was carried out in and around the Amadora municipality outside central Lisbon in the 1990s and early 2000s. The film focuses on the experience of a Cape Verdean named Ventura as he moves from a squatted neighbourhood set for demolition to new governmentbuilt housing. I examine the ways and extent to which the inhabitants of both the old and new neighbourhoods, like Ventura, exercised and continue to make claims to power. Power, in this context, is related to speech – that is, the ability to tell one’s own story – as well as to freedom of movement and association – that is, the ability to choose where and how home is determined. I argue that the film subtly urges viewers to question racist motivations for rehousing plans while at the same time repeating to an extent the same sort of silencing of underprivileged residents (immigrants, blacks and/or the poor) carried out by government authorities, and thus both reflects and affects residents’ exercise of power.