Insurgent Climate Resilience: Rental Housing and Repair in Brazilian Informal Settlements

In the context of climate change, much scholarly attention has been directed toward understanding how informal settlements degrade environmentally sensitive areas. This paper, however, shifts the focus to an alternative phenomenon: Insurgent Climate Resilience—when slum dwellers become active agents of their own collective survival. Here, resilience is understood in its "small r" form, referring to grassroots strategies of building adaptation, particularly within the compact densities of rental housing. The argument put forward is that scholars of the built environment must deepen their understanding of these emergent practices, which offer new insights into how marginalized communities are shaping their environments in response to intersectional ecological, economic, and social pressures.

Drawing on an extensive field-based study of urban change and the rise of rental housing on São Paulo's peripheries, this paper explores how rental adaptations to existing buildings create new housing types that address human health, safety, and welfare in innovative ways. It is suggested that the two paradigms of housing informality and urban resilience can co-exist and complement each other in the co-construction of urban resilience. The need for transgeographic legal, political, economic, and planning frameworks are noted and active community involvement in decision-making about technological transitions is emphasized.