SPECIAL SOCIAL INTEREST AREAS, TERRITORIAL DISPUTES AND POPULAR RESISTANCE: A Study of Urban Communities in the Eastern Administrative Region of Natal/RN (1994-2022)
Special Areas of Social Interest; Popular resistance; Real estate market; Urban land conflicts; Reciprocity.
The theme of this research is Special Areas of Social Interest (AEIS), territorial disputes and popular resistance, focusing on the experiences of urban communities located in the Eastern Administrative Region of Natal/RN, in three moments between the 1970s and the 2020s, with emphasis on the period from 1993 to 2022. The central problem is to understand how the formation and permanence of popular territories forged in popular resistance reveal the consolidation and/or violation of rights in the face of State action and pressure from the formal real estate market. The general objective is to understand the processes of formation and transformation of the AEIS in the Eastern Administrative Region of Natal, between 1993 and 2022, considering the combined action of the State, the real estate market and local communities in the consolidation, permanence or weakening of these popular territories. Methodologically, a qualitative approach is adopted, grounded in historical-dialectical materialism, combining documentary analysis (master plans, laws, minutes, technical opinions, press reports) and fieldwork. The analysis articulates three main categories: territorial configuration, State–community relations and relations between the real estate market and communities, operationalized in the dimensions text–rite–territory. The research reconstructs three moments. The first (1970–1996) shows the genesis of the AEIS and the construction of an institutional arrangement that combines perimeter, use title, priority map and governance through council and fund. The second (2005 2009) follows the revision of the Master Plan, the creation of the Social Interest Zone (Mancha de Interesse Social) and new AEIS categories, highlighting how conferences, opinions and a recommendation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office preserved the perimeters in the face of attempts at flexibilization outside the formal procedure. The third (2014–2022) focuses on the Eastern Administrative Region, articulating disaster and reconstruction works in Mãe Luíza, a removal proposal in Jacó and perimeter reduction in Brasília Teimosa, in the context of the approval of Complementary Law no. 208/2022. The results indicate that the fate of the AEIS (to remain, be conditioned or be lost) depends on the combination between practices of reciprocity and community organization, the legal-institutional framework (perimeter, protection of surroundings, compensations and rite) and market pressure for valorization. As a contribution, the thesis shows the AEIS as territorial configurations under dispute, in which permanence becomes more likely when reciprocity and State rite are aligned, and more fragile when normative and procedural erosion opens breaches for real estate capture.