Social movements and conflicts in medium-sized cities: scales, territory, and collective action in inland São Paulo

Abstract

The 2010s profoundly reshaped the field of social movements in Brazil, broadening the repertoires, agendas, and networks of institutional and extra-institutional collective action. Starting from the premise that understanding social movements means understanding the very functioning of democracy, this article investigates the dynamics of collective action in medium-sized Brazilian cities, a subject historically overlooked by scholarship concentrated on metropolitan areas. The paper presents preliminary results from the postdoctoral project “Decentering social movements and social conflicts in Brazil” (CEMS/EHESS-Paris and the Sociology Departament at UFSCar), based on a mapping of social movements in São Carlos (São Paulo state), a medium-sized city marked by the presence of high-technology industries and agribusiness. Three case studies were selected — Unegro, FORMAS (Municipal Environment and Society Forum), and the “São Carlos sem Veneno” campaign —, drawing on interviews with movement leaders, field research, and analysis of materials produced by the movements and media coverage. The results indicate that the field of social movements in decentered contexts is diverse and vigorous, differentiated by distinct territorial conjunctures and scales of action: from the multiscalar articulation of the anti-racist agenda to the dismantling of an incipient environmental movement under pressure from technological agribusiness. The cases reveal continuities and ruptures in mobilization cycles and reinforce the need to broaden the analytical repertoire of social movement studies beyond metropolitan areas, incorporating territorial and scalar variables.