This presentation draws from my ongoing doctoral research on occupations and evictions in social housing estates in Lisbon Metropolitan Area. Early on it was decided that the research project needed to have an engagement with the struggle of the residents for the right to housing, and I thus opted for a method that focuses on engagement, not detachment: a method of activist research (Hale 2006). The position that aligns the research process with the struggle for social justice has been decribed as one of an intellectual activist, a rearguard intellectual (Santos 2016), or as a researcher in solidarity (Motta 2011). This also involves acknowledging that knowledge is produced collectively and within the political action, the researcher being a node within a network of emancipatory praxis (Motta, 2011). In practice, however, these ideals can face many challenges as the research process unfolds. In this doctoral research, alignment with political activism proved easy with the collective I worked with, Habita, that fights for the Right to Housing and to the City. Yet, with the families occupying, the power relations became much more accentuated. Here, my role became more characterized by what Sletto & Nygren (2015) call “knowledge encounters”. In practice, advocacy, activism and social critique were mixed in the process in which the dominant narratives on the families occupying were deconstructed challenged. It this presentation, I will reflect upon these processes, arguing that the challenges notwithstanding, direct participation is still fundamental to build up collective efforts to remake the everyday life.

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scholar-activist,research methods,activist research