Urban hospitality and the crowd. A discussion about sovereignty, states of exception, and inclusion in the urban public space based on some massive occupation processes in the city of São Paulo

Abstract

In the wake of the protests that took place in mid 2013 in the city of São Paulo, this article investigates some collective and momentary massive occupation processes of the open public spaces in the city’s downtown area, whether under the aegis of the law or beyond the law. It can be said that the observation of intriguing and unstable ways of occupancy and appropriation of the public space – rather than stability of the built landscape – and their constant, momentary, and circumstantial rearrangement was the leitmotif for building a critical reflection on the uncertain paradoxical trends associated with contemporary collective public life. This study analyzed the territory as an inseparable relationship between normative pre-figurations and spontaneous momentary configurations of the urban space through appropriative, constant, and/or occasional flows. From everyday life to the most casual and incidental, what could have been thought based on this relation? Starting from this desubstantiated matter, another epistemological panorama about the present rises, riddled with paradoxalities. Ranging from the predictable, normalized, and standardized to the unexpected, urban space – changes in time – gave rise to a dimension important enough to be considered [and to be thought of] about the public “being” of the territory in some situations and occasions.