Fierro, Alberto2023-06-162023-06-1620200891-4486, 1573-341610.1007/s10767-020-09356-6http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/13876The Brazilian Movimento dos Trabalhadores sem Teto (MTST)—Homeless Workers’ Movement—is a social movement that struggles for housing and for a radical transformation of capitalistic socio-economic relations. The present paper offers a problematization of the movement’s plea to social rights. They are part of the movement’s discourse and strategy. However, the activists’ objective is more radical: they aim at a complete transformation of the Brazilian economy and society. By first discussing two sets of literatures—Critical Legal Theory and Governmentality Studies—this article illustrates the complexity and the ambivalences of a radical politics of rights. Then, by contrasting my ongoing ethnographic research with the work of James Holston and Lucy Earle, I discuss the relevance of a citizenship framework for the MTST’s struggle. Finally, inspired by Foucault’s concept of counter-conducts, the article argues that the movement’s politics of rights represents an effective tactic to contrast neoliberal governmentality and to create radical democratic spaces of struggle and collective resistance.engCC BY 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Journal articlehttps://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10767-020-09356-6