O ALIMENTO DO MOVIMENTO: Cidade, A(r)tivismo e Comunicação Urbana nas Panelas da Cozinha Ocupação 9 de Julho.

Resumo (EN)

This paper presents the Movimento Sem Teto do Centro (MSTC) and the Cozinha Ocupação 9 de Julho, discussing how food production in a collective and solidarity-based kitchen can function as an urban-communicational tool to strengthen a(r)tivisms and broaden political agendas beyond claims for housing in São Paulo’s central area. The fieldwork, inspired by ethnography and guided by corpography, involved immersive experiences, interviews, and the monitoring of key actors both in physical spaces and on digital platforms. The study begins with a brief historical overview of the mobilizations for the right to live in central São Paulo, focusing on MSTC’s actions in the Ocupação 9 de Julho, which resists the hegemonic logic of pushing the most vulnerable to the outskirts, instead reconfiguring urban space through alternative logics of use and habitation. Next, we analyze the strategic shift in the movement’s actions, from forcibly occupying empty buildings to embracing cultural, artistic, culinary, political, and activist production within occupied territories as a form of political pressure. This strategy materializes especially in the Sunday events held around the Cozinha Ocupação 9 de Julho, weekly gatherings that act as spaces of encounter, resistance, and solidarity-activist consumption, while also attracting new allies, reinforcing connections, and expanding MSTC’s agenda. The study also explores the interaction networks and affective bonds formed within the territory, as well as the atmospheres created within the Ocupação, dimensions that contribute to communicational and a(r)tivist expressions in this space that is constantly being (de)(re)constructed.