Research Group
Research Group
Research Group
DINÂMIA'CET-IUL
Centre for Socioeconomic and Territorial Studies
Integrated Researcher

Saila-Maria Saaristo
research interests
urban studies; critical geography; housing precarity; insurgent urbanism; social reproduction; social movements
Short Bio
Saila-Maria Saaristo is a post-doctoral Researcher at DINÂMIA'CET within the project Care4Housing. A scholar of urban theory, inequality, social justice, and race and gender, Saaristo earned her Master's in Social and Cultural Anthropology (2009) and a Ph.D. in Global Development Studies (2022) at the University of Helsinki and the University of Coimbra. Her Ph.D. thesis, titled "Transgressive Participation: Housing struggles, occupations and evictions in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area", explores the phenomena of occupations and struggle against evictions in social housing estates, exploring the roles of diverse actors in these processes, such as residents, managers of social housing estates, and social movement activists.
Her work emerges at the intersection of critical urban, race and gender studies, and debates housing precarity, social justice and social mobilisation, bringing together and juxtaposing the contexts of the Global South and North. More recently, she had paid specific attention to the question of care labour and social reproduction in relation to housing precarity.
research project at dinâmia'cet-Iscte
In a close dialogue betweeen theory and practice / research and action, Care4Housing aims to explore new housing concepts oriented to 'othered' groups, in line with Lefebvre's production of space, the concepts of social justice of Soja, and the politics of difference of Young, where care will be the driver. Housing precarity is a growing phenomenon in Europe, particularly in southern contexts. Care4Housing explores four dimensions of care through design: the need to care for space; the need to care for people; building with care; and care as a political tool
Main publications
Saaristo, S.M. 2022. Transgressive Participation: Housing struggles, occupations and evictions in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. Helsinki: Unigrafia.
Saaristo, S.M. & Bogado, D. 2021. “Subjective and symbolic disputes in the fight for the right to the city: actions of the collective Stop Despejos for resistance of the 6 de Maio neighbourhood in Lisbon.” In A. Allegri et al.,(Eds.), Research Tracks in Urbanism: Dynamics, Planning and Design in Contemporary Urban Territories (pp. 167–173). London: CRC Press.
Saaristo, S.M. & Bogado, D. 2021. “Subjective and symbolic disputes in the fight for the right to the city: actions of the collective Stop Despejos for resistance of the 6 de Maio neighbourhood in Lisbon.” In A. Allegri et al.,(Eds.), Research Tracks in Urbanism: Dynamics, Planning and Design in Contemporary Urban Territories (pp. 167–173). London: CRC Press.
Saaristo, S.M. 2019. “Asociaciones de residentes de las favelas: entre represión, violencia y política”, in Durand, Nygren & De la Vega-Leinert (eds.). Naturaleza y Neoliberalismo en América Latina, pp. 385-422. México: Universidad Autónoma de México.
Saaristo, S.M. 2016. “Favela Associations: Agency between Repression, Violence and Politics”. Suomen antropologi, vol. 40, issue 2, pp. 28-49.
Main projects
Care4Housing
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