Sobre os barrancos de beira de rio: práticas ribeirinhas insurgentes do Baixo Onça

Abstract

This research aims to understand the several ways to approach “the right to the city” by analyzing the socio-spatial dynamics of urban struggles, presenting the Ribeiro de Abreu’s Community Council (COMUPRA) and “Deixem o Onça Beber Água Limpa” social movement practices. In this way, this study proposes an updated approach developed by contemporary Latin American decolonial thinking, as it explores the many possibilities inherent to the concept and confirms the pluralism present in urbanism. This research examines the claims, demands, and accomplishments of the mentioned cases with the intention of investigating the experiences of these insurgent practices (Velloso, 2022; Miraftab, 2009) according to the urban context of the northeast peripheral region of Belo Horizonte, that expanded itself following the margins of Ribeirão Onça (Ounce river). I propose a political commitment to practical action and writing by constructing an affected text. There is a special attention in not being a neutral author, as I discuss the presence of sensible shared in the research. This research path presents the tenacity of writing about a living philosophy (Lefebvre, 1991) through militant research (Bartholl, 2015). As it discusses the social agenda established for Baixo Onça’s region, this work underlines the peripheral condition of the subjects (D’andrea, 2022) and of the social movement based on the organization of everyday life according to the micro-scale and the collective production of space. I seek to highlight the experience of CSA Bai Onça project and its formulation about other economies and care, an agroecological urban practice outlined by the riverside population of Baixo Onça’s region.