The Housing-Climate Nexus in São Paulo, Brazil: Critical Perspectives from the Evictions Observatory

This presentation examines how climate adaptation policies can contribute to the forced eviction of marginalized communities, operating as mechanisms of dispossession. Engaging with debates on climate urbanism, it argues that climate change discourses are being politically appropriated to justify public interventions that lack coherent urbanistic or housing-policy objectives, while reinforcing discretionary modes of governance.

Empirically, the presentation draws on a collective, interdisciplinary research project conducted by the Evictions Observatory, focusing on two cases in São Paulo. It argues that, rather than functioning as neutral technical assessments, risk-based frameworks operate as political tools that legitimize selective forms of urban governance, often reinforcing social exclusion and urban inequality. Combining ethnographic fieldwork with critical cartographic analysis, the presentation also proposes the notion of “collaborative epistemologies” as a form of politically engaged and situated research practice.