Pandemic Solidarity: The Changing Repertoires of Housing Mobilisation During the Covid-19 Crisis

This article examines how social movements focused on the right to housing have responded to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. Particularly, it sheds light on the protagonism of activists and housing groups as producers of political innovation, knowledge, resistance and transformative possibilities. To this end, I compare two cities, Fortaleza (Brazil) and Lisbon (Portugal). The research provides a fresh approach to changes in social movements and to their concrete role in pandemic responses. Therefore, this contribution attempts to overcome the existing limited cross-continental approaches to semi-peripheral/peripheral countries. The study shows that groups focused on the right to housing were particularly active in three main action areas: anti-eviction campaigns, new ways of organising protests, and the creation / expansion of solidarity networks and new alternative futures.