On March 6th, at 2 pm, there will be an open lecture entitled “The city and social housing: contemporary chapters in a history of marginalization”, given by researcher Paula Grenha (ICS/UM/Lab2PT/IN2PAST), as part of the History of Presente Time course unit.

Synopsis: The right to housing and its accessibility has been enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic since 1976, with social housing guidelines prescribing, from the outset, the full right to the city. However, housing has always remained in an unstable equilibrium between basic needs and the conditions for enjoying them with dignity. Housing complexes, built as a utilitarian, cheap, and immediate urban response in geographically and socially circumscribed areas, have from early on constituted latent spaces of marginality. Based on the premise of access to dignified and just living conditions, and amidst negative social imputation, the economic, social, and cultural capital of its populations, and individual and collective representation, social housing support is explored here throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the strategies and challenges that its populations face daily within and between their neighborhoods and the urban space in which they are located.

This open lecture is organized by the History Department of ICS, in collaboration with Lab2PT/IN2PAST, under the coordination of Bruno Madeira.

Free admission.