Name: Vinícius Lamego de Paula
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 14/02/2020
Advisor:

Name	Role
Cristiana Losekann	Advisor *

Examining board:

Name	Role
Clara Luiza Miranda	External Examiner *
Cristiana Losekann	Advisor *
Frederico Normanha Ribeiro de Almeida	External Alternate *
Luciana Ferreira Tatagiba	External Examiner *

Summary: ABSTRACT
Occupations and Public Defender’s Office: Coordinated performances of law
mobilization in the struggle for housing in downtown Vitória.
In April 2017, there was a large occupation in the city of Vitória, involving about
500 families. As an offshoot emerged, in an unprecedented way, a cycle of
occupations of abandoned properties in downtown Vitória, a process that involves
both the historical actors in the struggle for housing in Espírito Santo, as well as
the new actors recently emerged in the state of Espírito Santo. The occupation
cycle also had several external supporters, among them the Public Defender’s
Office of the State of Espírito Santo and the Union. An approximation of these
variable actors and supporters results in the formation of new collectives and a
conflicting coalition around the application of the law to housing and to the city in
Vitória. This coalition gave various law mobilization repertoires and performances,
both coordinated and conflicting, that were carried out not only in the territory of the
city center, but also in various institutional spaces, among them: the justice organs,
the legislative houses, the executive offices, the universities and colleges. In this
sense, whether in the occupied territories or institutional spaces, the rights to
housing and to the city were mobilized in various ways. Thus, starting from the law
mobilization theory whose precursor is Michael McCann, as well as from cultural
and microsocial approaches to collective action, are analyzed the various uses of
law in the conflicting coalition under study. Similarly, the role of the Public
Defender's Office as a mobilizing agent of law is also investigated, both broadly
from its institutional aspects, and more specifically from the action of public
defenders in the specific case. Once I act as a public defender in the researched
phenomenon, to conduct this case study, I used the participant observation
method, such as interviewing, document analysis, and mobilization process
mapping.
Keywords: Occupations. Housing struggles. Law mobilization. Right to the city.
Public defender.

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