Comentary: José António Bandeirinha and Carina Gomes


Abstract.
This seminar will seek, first, to briefly trace the outline of the housing policy of the Estado Novo and identify some  moments in which this housing policy was discussed and questioned before the revolution. The policy of zoning, applied in several Portuguese cities, created differentiated areas for the different social classes and different functions, pushing factories and subaltern classes to neighborhoods on the periphery. Étienne de Groër's  urban layout  for Coimbra contemplated extending the city to the north and a greater distance of  the Coimbra's centre re residents of the Estação Velha area, who were displaced and relocated temporarily from 1957 to 1974 in wooden huts, in one of new industrial zones designed by architect and urban planner located in the Loreto-Pedrulha axis.

Secondly, it will  reflect on the period after April 25, 1974 and  specificity  on the movement of residents in Coimbra, comparing it with the movement of residents in Portugal. The SAAL (Ambulatory Local  Support Service), project unavoidable when discussing housing policy in Portugal, counted on  the participation of multidisciplinary teams ( architects, engineers, geographers, designers, sociologists) and aimed to create a model for solving the problem of housing shortage and insecurity of much of Portugal's population. This project involved 41,665 families in 169 SAAL operations. In Coimbra,in 1975, four operations were underway that would accommodate 260 families, but only the operation of the SAAL Relvinha reached the stage of construction, housing 34 families in houses built by the residents who obtained an array of support frim  groups outside the neighbourhood  with whom there was an intense "mutual learning".

Finally the presentation of some research results on the memories of residents of the Relvinha neighborhood  and members of external groups that supported the neighborhood, published in 2013, will help to better understand the relationship established between the movement of residents (everyday forms of resistance, residents' committee, neighborhood association, cooperative, SAAL and occupations of houses) and housing policies in the city of Coimbra, during the two periods covered .

Bio note

Degree in Sociology from the University of Coimbra. Master in Anthropology: Power and Identities at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the NOVA University of Lisbon. The undergraduate and master's theses both focused  on social movements, housing policies, self-construction,  SAAL , Revolutionary Process in Progress (PREC), memory, resistance and oral history. Worked as a fellow in the research project  PTDC/HIS-HIS/103810/2008.Além do fracasso e do Maquiavelismo. A emigração portuguesa irregular para França, 1957-1974 [Besides the failure and Machiavellianism . Irregular Portuguese emigration to France , 1957-1974], hosted by the IHC-FCSH - UNL between 2010 and 2013. Currently a member of the coordination of the Network for the Study of Labour, Labour Movement and Social Movement, member of Red Ibero American Resistencia y Memoria ( RIARM, researcher of the international project "Cooperación transfronteriza y (des)fronterización: actores y discursos geopolíticos transnacionales en la frontera
hispano-portuguesa (CSO2012-34677)", collborates with  IELT and doctoral student in Anthropology at the same faculty .

As a PhD student intends to examine the transformations caused by  Portuguese emigration, namely the stage that began during the sixties, and interrogate about the various stages of migration routes, ruptures and continuities in the migratory paths. With Rita Avila CachadIn, in 2012, coordinated the book,  "Políticas de habitação e construção informal" [Housing policies and informal  construction] e publicou and published "SAAL e Autoconstrução em Coimbra- Memórias dos moradores do Bairro da Relvinha 1954-1976"."  [SAAL and Self construction in Coimbra - Memories of the residents of the district of Relvinha 1954-1976]. In 2013 he coordinated a series of conferences entitled "'As portas que abril abriu' - Abordagens dos processos processos de transformação no período pós-25 de Abril '[The doors opened in April ' - Approaches to the  transformation processes in the post- April 25] , at the Republic and Resistance Museum Library