Justification in Protest Publics: The Homeless Workers’ Movement in Brazil’s Crisis

Mobilising the Periphery: Brazil's My House My Life Programme and the Homeless Workers' Movement

“…Consequently, the movement, which grew so quickly during the Rousseff Presidency, is now operating in a wholly different political environment. Jair Bolsonaro has maintained the suspension of MCMVE funding, and he describes the MTST in virulently derogatory language, once arguing that the MTST occupations should be met with ‘lead’ and ‘flamethrowers’ (Albert, 2018). The violent rhetoric and austerity politics sponsored by Bolsonaro suggest that the ongoing work of the movement, which seeks to extend the grassroots ‘base work’ via the popular front, Povo Sem Medo, will take shape in a much more hostile political climate, one lacking the affordances of a key neo‐developmentalist programme.…”