Housing movements have turned an individual problem “into a collective and political problem”. Guya Accornero analyses the recent housing protests

Interview on RTP Notícias, 22 October 2026

Guya Accornero, director of the Observatory of Democracy and Political Representation and professor at Iscte, was invited by RTP Notícias on 22 October 2026 to comment on the recent protest camps for the right to housing and the protests that have been intensifying across the country.

In the interview, the researcher placed these mobilisations within a cycle of protest that dates back to the post-austerity period and has been gaining strength. She noted that camping in public space is a well-established form of protest, used from Puerta del Sol to Geração à Rasca, and from Occupy Wall Street to Gezi Park, and that, amid a housing crisis as severe as the current one, it carries particular symbolic weight.

On the outcomes of these movements, Guya Accornero stressed that their success is not always immediate, but that they have already managed to turn a problem experienced as individual into a collective and political one, putting housing back in the public sphere and on the political agenda. She also highlighted the highly qualified profile of many activists who, besides protesting, produce knowledge on the issue, and noted that those protesting today do so on behalf of everyone affected by the crisis.

Her analysis draws on several years of research on these movements. Between 2018 and 2022, Guya Accornero coordinated the HOPES – Housing Perspectives and Struggles project, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), which studied new housing movements in Lisbon and how they relate to housing policies and urban dynamics. Developed at CIES-Iscte in partnership with ICS-ULisboa, the project combined ethnography, protest event analysis and public policy analysis, and included an action-research partnership with the housing association Habita. This work led to publications on gentrification, new collective identities and the knowledge produced by activists themselves, themes the researcher returned to in this interview.