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This article reflects on contemporary activism and its micropolitical connections for the right to the city in Brazil. It analyzes the ways in which Rio de Janeiro’s anti-asylum ( antimanicomial) movement addresses and problematizes this issue. Through resistance, affirmations, and experiments, this peripheral social movement invests the city with qualities of mental health support and care for the community. This article explores activist practices and discourses that reflect on and occupy urban space as a space of politics, exchange, and taking into account difference, in particular madness. By focusing on the micropolitics generated by peripheral social movements, it is possible to envisage processes that run counter to the sad scenario of democratic rupture under the guise of legality that currently dominates Brazilian macropolitics.