It is better to have a nursery! Women and the struggle for collective facilities during the SAAL Process (1974-76) in Portugal

Abstract

During the revolution, SAAL, Local Ambulatory Support Service (1974-76), was one of the exponents of the struggle for the right to housing in Portugal. From a state service to a popular process, technically assisted by interdisciplinary teams, its main objective of building decent houses extended to social facilities for “daily life”. Based on a literature review, an interview, and archival research, I show how the demand for nurseries and kindergartens expanded the scale of SAAL to the discussion on the city and opened possibilities for poor urban women residents to exert their right to the city at a time of reinvention of citizenship in revolutionary Portugal, initiating profound transformations in the family, society and the city.