Introduction

The Marconi occupation is a squat in downtown São Paulo, Brazil, organised by the Movimento Moradia Para Todos (Movement for Housing for All) (MMPT). In an abandoned office building, occupied in 2012, protesters struggled to materialise their political hopes inside the camp: everyday social relations between people were transformed, with the aim of achieving a glimpse of a more just, sustainable and equal society. By ‘creating other ways of being in the world’ (Osterweil, 2004, 503), Marconi became an example of a social movement protest strategy, providing housing but also challenging the capitalistic status quo and encouraging a search for individual and group identities. Those alternative relations and structures were ephemeral constructions: the elements that constituted the protest camp vanished over time, stressing the existing tension between ‘making protest’ and ‘making home’. Issues were intertwined and collided in the everyday existence of the inhabitants of this social laboratory. Despite the short life of the initiative, it still reverberates and the experience is still embodied in those people who were involved.

This chapter analyses what happens when the camp exists in order to offer a practical solution to housing and social reproduction. It is divided into three sections: the first contextualises this case study against the backdrop of the Brazilian protest landscape, while the second analyses the Marconi occupation through a key set of protest camp infrastructures and practices.