Project Summary

Residents living in occupations and favelas on the southern periphery of São Paulo, Brazil, face acute vulnerability to climate impacts such as flooding, heat waves, and related health problems, largely due to inadequate sanitation infrastructure and precarious housing conditions. In this context of widespread poverty, insecure land tenure, and lack of government support, residents have to take into their own hands the transformation of their settlements into resilient communities.

In partnership with the Centre of Popular Movements, the Union of Housing Movements, and Peabiru Trabalhos Comunitários e Ambientais, the research team facilitated 28 workshops in the Pantanal, Toka, and Anchieta communities. These workshops aimed to raise awareness of the environmental, social, and gendered dimensions of slum upgrading in Brazil while also promoting the leadership of women and LGBTQIA+ community members through targeted capacity-building activities.

The workshops incorporated the use of participatory methods such as Photo-Voice, photo-elicitation, community mapping, and timeline construction to share the participants’ lived experiences and discuss counter mapping and identity creation strategies based on the challenges faced by the communities. These workshops brought the lived realities of community stewards to the forefront and identified transformative pathways to improve conditions in their settlements. 

The dialogue between the research team and participants built foundational knowledge for the co-creation of educational pamphlets that include examples of sustainable slum upgrading techniques, key concepts related to climate change, and environmental justice and gender issues in the context of slum vulnerability. In this sense, the gatherings also promoted capacity-building by equipping participants with communication and content creation skills, fostering mutual learning, and helping them better understand and navigate official terminology around climate vulnerability, language that is often used by authorities in ways that disempower them.

Project's findings on the challenges faced by local communities - and the solutions they shared - contributed to the growing body of research on slum ecology and the environmental dimensions of slum upgrading in Brazil, with a particular emphasis on intersectionality and environmental justice.  The activities carried out, along with the distribution of educational pamphlets, were part of a broader, multi-stage participatory action research initiative ongoing in the city of São Paulo since 2016. The project strengthened articulation between communities by creating a network of collaborators to advocate for more inclusive and effective municipal public services, including adequate housing, reliable water access, and flood-resistant infrastructure.

This project received a $10,000 Catalyst Grant in 2022.

Project team: María Arquero de Alarcón, PI (Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning | U-M Ann Arbor); Ana Paula Pimentel Walker, Co-I (Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning | U-M Ann Arbor); Mieko Yoshihama, Co-I (School of Social Work | U-M Ann Arbor); Odessa Gonzalez Benson (School of Social Work | U-M Ann Arbor).