ECONOMIC DYNAMICS, TENSIONS AND URBAN CONFLICTS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Abstract

Amid recurring processes relating to the production of urban space are tensions and disputes involving distinct and frequently antagonistic interests, which end up as resistances and conflicts. However, while conflicts have been continuous, the forms social groups perceive them and forward their demands have been changing. An initial phase could be associated to intensive accumulation and its political expression, the welfare State and labor unions. Analyses in this period expected that reactions of urban groups were able not only to start changes in urban spatial organization but also to trigger transformations in the dominant social logic. A second phase is flexible accumulation and its manifestation in the political sphere, the neoliberal State and the contention of union influence. Faced with these changes, studies started to acknowledge that reactions of urban groups presented a limited potential, representing agglutinations with a relatively narrow outreach. In the last decades, manifestations of conflicts seem to feature less as organized social movements; and more as forms of collective action, restricted to specific interest groups.