Urban social movements and their struggles towards the "right to the city" : protest and creativity as determinant features of democratic cities in Germany and Brazil

In the present work, the main objective is to understand the geographical constructions of urban social movements in relation to the production of the urban space in Recife (Brazil) and Hamburg (Germany), with the purpose of fighting for democratic urban life for all. This struggle is represented by the idea of the right to the city. This idea was worked out by Henri Lefebvre after the events in May 1968 in Europe that set a milestone in the history of the twentieth century. These movements sought to collect solutions for the existential crisis that plagued urban environments, and which the political-economic system based on Keynesianism was no longer able to solve. With the development of neoliberalismthe progress of the processes of globalization and urbanizationthe existential crisis of human society worsened. Segregation, fragmentation, poverty, violence, hopelessness, and helplessness are the backdrop for a greater part of humanity at the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first century. Urban social movements were always present during these periods, constituting themselves as indispensable social actors in shaping society. In some regional contexts, such as Latin America, these social movements were harshly repressed and violently opposed by authoritarian regimes. However, with the stagnation of the economy and the unsustainability of the existential urban crisis that swept across the globe, neoliberalism began to collapse at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and therefore, the role of social movements in this context becomes increasingly important. Considering that both the state and the market have failed to manage society, these urban social movements are now reclaiming and demanding the control and management of their own lives and fates. This is the core of this research: understand and reflect on the new strategies of action of these urban social movements towards the right to the city.

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