M. W. Caulkins Resistance to Displacement I Negotiating the Politics of Emplacement: the Prestes Maia Occupation in São Paulo
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M. W. Caulkins Resistance to Displacement Negotiating the Politics of Emplacement: the Prestes Maia occupation in São Paulo, Brazil, and the ruka Folilche Aflaiai in Santiago de Chile A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Matthew W. Caulkins Masters of Urban Planning Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Universidad de Chile Specialization in Social Housing Instituto de la Vivienda, Universidad de Chile Bachelor of Architecture and Urban Planning Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo School of Global Urban and Social Studies College of Design and Social Context RMIT University October 2018 i M. W. Caulkins Resistance to Displacement I certify that except where due acknowledgement has been made, the work is that of the author alone; the work has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify for any other academic award; the content of the thesis is the result of work which has been carried out since the official commencement date of the approved research program; any editorial work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged; and, ethics procedures and guidelines have been followed. I acknowledge the support I have received for my research through the provision of an ARC PhD scholarship from the project “Who owns the Sustainble City?” (ARC DP140102851) Matthew W. Caulkins Melbourne, 22 October 2018 ii M. W. Caulkins Resistance to Displacement Acknowledgements I want to begin this section of academic gratefulness by acknowledging the place(s) from which I wrote this thesis. To begin with this thesis was written while I was a guest of the nation-state of Australia because as an international student I was on a student visa. But this nation-state of Australia in turn is an (uninvited) guest on ‘its’ territory. These lands are home to many Aboriginal nations, the traditional caretakers of the land. At yet another level it would make sense to say this thesis was written while sitting at an office at RMIT University in the city of Melbourne. That office sits on lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. But even they too are ultimately guests on the land. (The real difference is that they remember this simple fact while we in the overdeveloped West constantly and actively forget it.) But I want to acknowledge other places as well. This thesis is based on six months of fieldwork which was done partially in Brazil: at the occupation known as Prestes Maia and at a shared office space at LabHab at the State University (USP) in São Paulo, and partially in Chile: at the ruka Folilche Aflaiai and at an office kindly provided by the Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales (IEUT) at the Catholic University (PUC) in Santiago. And this thesis was written from a number of different homes throughout the PhD. While doing fieldwork I lived with my family in an apartment paid for by the Australian Research Council (ARC) research project which my PhD sat under (number DP140102851) in barrio Italia in Santiago and at my parent’s apartment in Lapa in São Paulo. While ‘at home’ in Australia, we lived at an apartment in Brunswick West, then at a unit and later a house in Mitcham. All three of these are suburbs within the metropolitan area of Melbourne. I would also like to acknowledge the people who helped me write this thesis. As the writer of Genesis so elegantly put it: 'First this: God' (Gen. 1:1, The Message). Or, as we say in Chile, cuando Dios cierra una puerta, abre una ventana (when God closes a door, he opens a window). And he did. He closed the door to a scholarship which would have tied me down to a PhD in Geography at Monash University. The particular conditions on that scholarship would have trapped me at Monash without supervisors when the school/department/centre/study group of Geography was restructured. However God did not only close the door to that scholarship, he also opened a window through the ARC grant my supervisor Libby Porter was awarded. I followed her in her move to a great community of urban scholars at RMIT University. So I thank both the ARC for their financial investment in my education and Libby Porter for her care and dedication. I don’t think there ever iii M. W. Caulkins Resistance to Displacement will be a supervisor as dedicated, generous and caring. But I had two supervisors. I also want to thank Wendy Steele who came on board once Libby and I arrived at RMIT. Her patience and her thoughtful provocations kept me on course through what might have otherwise been many a bad decision of my own. I also had a third, informal, adjunct supervisor as it were. I want to thank Mauro Fontana Flores for being such a vital guide for the part of my adventure that took me into el País Mapuche (the Mapuche Country). Mauro is an organic Mapuche intellectual, a PhD colleague from a different university, a co-writer and a friend. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the people who welcomed me into their homes at the occupation in São Paulo and into their lives at the ruka in Santiago. I hope this thesis reflects something of the warm generosity I received from all of you. Yet there are so many more people who helped this thesis in important ways. The people at LabHab provided many collegial discussions, especially Karina Leitão and Beatriz Rufino. At the IEUT I would like to thank Francisco Sabatini and Luis Fuentes for their generous welcome and Javier Ruiz-Tagle and Arturo Orellana for many fruitful discussions. I cannot forget to mention the invaluable help of two research assistants, Lucas Meirelles in São Paulo and Nicolás del Canto in Santiago. But not only recent events made this thesis possible. Alberto Gurovich was my first mentor in the research life as my master’s thesis supervisor. I was encouraged into a life of writing and learning by those long afternoons spent in enjoyably disorganised discussion in that office that had previously been headquarters of the cavalry regiment. And finally none of this would have been possible without my family. We are all formed for better or for worse by our families. I am at least partially a product of my father’s love for books and my mother’s love for justice, but also my father’s insistence on studying and my mother’s patient listening, and the years of unstructured intellectual discussions with my three brothers. And how not to mention my lovely family who put up with my travels during this belated student experience? I want to thank my incredibly generous and patient wife Na Rae from the bottom of my heart, also my vivacious first son Noah, but also the two children born during this wild PhD ride, Evan and Rhema! You four are amazing! iv M. W. Caulkins Resistance to Displacement Table of Contents Acknowledgments iii Table of contents v Abstract 1 Chapter 1: Introduction 2 1.1. Preface 3 1.2. Research context 4 1.3. Research problem 7 1.4. Research response 9 1.4.1. Occupation in São Paulo 9 1.4.2. Ruka in Santiago 11 1.5. Contribution 13 1.6. Structure of thesis 14 Chapter 2: Negotiating Emplacement 18 2.1 Introduction 18 2.2. Negotiating 18 2.2.1. Structural displacement 18 2.2.2. Socio-cultural displacement 20 2.2.3. Everyday forms of resistance 22 2.2.4. Emplacement in space 23 2.2.5. Creating communities-in-place 25 2.3. The Politics of Emplacement 28 2.3.1. Gaining access to space 29 2.3.1.1. Spatial politics 30 2.3.2. Transforming space 31 2.3.2.1. Transforming property 33 2.3.2.2. Transforming territory 35 2.3.3. Politicising space 35 v M. W. Caulkins Resistance to Displacement 2.3.3.1. Politicising property 37 2.3.3.2. Politicising territory 38 Chapter 3: Methods 40 3.1. Introduction 40 3.2. Ethnographic case study research 40 3.3. Research design 42 3.4. Selection of cases 45 3.5. Data Collection 50 3.6. Giving back 60 3.7. The production of urban knowledge 61 3.8. Positionality and Privilege 63 3.9. Analysing the findings 65 Chapter 4: Spatial politics at Prestes Maia 69 4.1. Introduction 69 4.2. Writing about the production of a spatial politics 69 4.3. Imagining a Community 72 4.4. Practicing a Differential Space 79 4.5. Materially different physical space 87 4.6. Conclusion 91 Chapter 5: Spatial politics at Folilche Aflaiai 93 5.1. Introduction 93 5.2. Writing about a Mapuche spatial politics in the city 93 5.3. Bringing a Mapuche imaginary into the city 98 5.4. Bringing Mapuche practices into the city 105 5.5. Creating materially different Mapuche spaces in the city 110 5.6. Conclusion 116 Chapter 6: Engaging with the formality of property 117 6.1. Introduction 117 6.2. Perpetual motion machines 118 6.3. Prestes Maia in São Paulo 122 6.3.1. The occupations as existing property 122 6.3.2. The politics of formalisation 127 vi M. W. Caulkins Resistance to Displacement 6.3.3. Property politics despite formalisation 130 6.4. Folilche Aflaiai in Santiago 131 6.4.1. Comodato as existing property 132 6.4.2. Comodato as form of governance 136 6.4.3. Property politics despite present formalities 141 6.5.