This paper explores the ambiguous role of a grassroots cultural and activist association in Lisbon (Portugal), within the city's rapidly expanding frontiers of gentrification and touristification. The association fights for the right to the city, among other causes such as feminism and climate change. However, in 2014, strong institutional pressure led to the association’s displacement from its former location in the gentrified and touristified Bairro Alto to Intendente. Previously characterised by urban decay and poverty, with degraded buildings and racialised, stigmatised and marginalised populations, Intendente was then undergoing urban regeneration. The City Council aimed to attract cultural and activist associations as part of its strategy to change the area’s image. Now, the area has been revalued, and the association faces a new threat of displacement due to high rent prices. By combining documentary research and an exploratory ethnography carried out in 2022, which included interviews with key informants, we take a retrospective view of this association’s history of displacement, illustrating ten years of Lisbon’s city changes. We explore the tensions and negotiations between multiple actors (City Council, landlords, and activists) and how the association navigates between resisting urban neoliberalism and contributing (unintentionally) to spatial and social changes in this 'grey zone' of the tourist city. We aim to contribute to existing literature on the interplay between urban movements, touristification and gentrification, providing clues to shed light on how grassroots associations resist, survive and/or collaborate within the manifold processes of urban change.

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