This paper analyzes the history of the formation and consolidation of Paz's Neighborhood (Paz in portuguese means Peace), one of the poorest of the city of Salvador, through a series of local newspapers articles and a report of attendance of CEAS (in english, Center of Studies and Social Action). Based in this material and in data collected directly in the field, we propose an interpretation of the residents' fight to stay at their place that points out their own agency. In this way, it can be observed that the local organization, supported by social and political movements, and by sectors of the Catholic Church, was not limited to obtaining the right of occupancy, in its beginning, nor, later, to obtaining of urbanization improvements. The performance of the area occupants also turned to the construction of an identity of "local resident", articulated with several entities and movements, pressing and striving for to control their own occupation, as well as their own image, in a way that approximates them of the model called "new social movements". The central argument is that, before a phenomenon as the urban "new poverty"(if that can be defined like this), the social actors also find new forms of articulating their action, even without an explicit political project.
slums; new poverty; social representations; social actors; Salvador