Occupations As Feminist Re-Imaginations of Space Production: The Case of the 9th of July Occupation in Innercity Sao Paulo

In São Paulo, Brazil's largest city and one of the ten largest metropolitan areas in the world, home to over 20 million people, an urban paradox unfolds—monumental buildings in the city center stand abandoned while the city expands horizontally. Amidst this landscape, new ways of reimagining urban space are emerging. Black women-led social and housing movements are reclaiming abandoned buildings not only to assert material and political centrality but also to foster radical alternatives for how cities can be (re)produced, (re)made, and (re)imagined.

This work presents women-led occupations as feminist practices of radical democracy and collective power, offering non-capitalist alternatives for urban space production. Drawing on feminist theory, it examines the gendered and racialized implications of urban production while analyzing how these movements challenge existing inequalities and project new forms of citizenship. Focusing on São Paulo’s urban development—particularly the abandonment of the city center and the political mobilization that has that has uniquely crystallized in this context, making occupations a common practice in recent decades—it highlights how these movements represent a response to the failures of capitalist, racist and gendered space production by asserting democratic control over urban space.

Through a case study of the 9th of July Occupation, led by the Movimento Sem Teto do Centro (Center Homeless Movement), this work explores how the spaces and practices within these occupations challenge conventional urban production rooted in capitalist, racist, and gendered systems. It argues that these movements not only reclaim space but also embody the principles of radical democracy by creating inclusive, participatory and collective alternatives to prevailing socio-economic spatialities. This research contributes to broader discussions on how contemporary social movements can reimagine urban production, collective decision and democracy while reimagining non-capitalist solutions to challenges of the 21st century.