Planejamento Urbano

The article discusses the Brazilian government's "pacification project" to occupy slums, disarm drug gangs, and arrest drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro, particularly focusing on the favela, or slum, called Rocinha. It draws on the author's travels in Rocinha and his conversations with artist Marcos Rodrigo Neves. The author also reflects on poverty in the slums, government-backed urban renewal projects to improve quality of life, and the control of Rocinha by the criminal organization Amigos dos Amigos.

This paper contributes to critical and Southern urban studies by discussing how the notion of hybridity is useful to understand contemporary modes of politics rooted in equality pursuits and crafted by peripheral subjects. It analyses the birth, discourses and tactics of three grassroots groups in Rocinha, an immense peripheral settlement in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to show how modern insurgent claims – based on material urban rights – are intertwined with other grammars of justice, such as the politics of intersectional difference, critical pedagogies, solidarity and care. These cases suggest that contemporary insurgency builds on rights-based citizenship claims to create unique pathways that somehow articulate the universality and relationality of justice. I suggest that hybrid insurgent citizenship operates like a braid in which different strategies are uniquely and interdependently linked over time. Whilst in Rocinha the central thread is insurgency, the same logics could apply to other context-situated political traditions.

This paper addresses two different urban phenomena that currently take place in Rocinha, the most prominent favela (slum) of Rio de Janeiro, with more than 100 000 inhabitants. On the one hand, that of the houses' expansion typically accomplished through constructions on the rooftop (the upper slab), operations locally known as the construção de laje (upper slab construction). On the other hand, new urban spaces as a result of public resettlement operations consisting of the clearing of tangled webs of narrow, dark and unhealthy alleys that crisscross up and down the favela. As an example, we will take the case of the 4th Street operation, a multidimensional process of de‐densification that involved heavy demolition, the removal of many houses and relocation of the dwellers. This urban renewal was carried out with resources from a federal programme and conducted by the state government, but with the involvement of different local actors, including local associations and community activists. The study focuses on the social sustainability issues underlying the private and public process, analysing the roles played by the different stakeholders and their interactions. The collection of data and subsequent analysis comprises diverse methods including literature review, examination of architectural and urban projects, surveys, interviews with architects and other municipal and private technicians, as well as inquiries to the householders. These interviews and inquiries revealed the favela's dwellers' perception regarding the two‐year process and, in particular, the role played by the different actors involved. The conclusions highlight the social networks that arose and consolidated during the slum upgrading process and analyse the interactions among the members of those networks.

Grassroots environmental activism among Latin America's poor has altered the debate over environmental policy, social welfare, and citizenship. Yet the question remains whether this social mobilization of the poor is part of a larger trend toward broader environmental concerns and democratic political participation, or a short-lived movement susceptible to the same pressures that have dissolved community mobilization in the past. This article compares Brazil with other Latin American and European countries in surveys of environmental awareness, concerns, and reported behavior. It finds that Brazilians residing in the urban periphery link their own local environmental concerns to more global considerations, and that concern for and activism on environmental issues is positively related to wider community involvement.

In preparation for a series of mega-events culminating in the 2016 Summer Olympics, the state has been reclaiming select favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Territories that have been controlled by drug gangs and largely off-limits for as long as thirty years are being colonized through a series of aggressive government programs that involve military occupation, infrastructure provision, beautification and selected removal. Following James Scott I argue that the production of "legibility and simplification" associated with these programs is necessary for residents to fully participate in modern society, but that these measures expose residents to predatory aspects of the state and capital.
Resumo em português: Durante os preparativos para uma série de megaeventos, inclusive os Jogos Olímpicos de 2016, o Estado tem recuperado o controle de certas favelas do Rio de Janeiro. Territórios que foram controladas por traficantes durante mais que 30 anos, tornam-se agora colonizados por uma série de programas governamentais que envolvem a ocupação militar, a provisão de infraestrutura, embelezamento e remoção seletiva. De acordo com o pensamento de James Scott, eu argumento que a produção de "legibilidade e simplificação" associada a esses programas é necessária para que os moradores possam participar plenamente na sociedade moderna, mas que estas medidas expõem os moradores a aspectos predatórios do Estado e do capital.

This article examines the politics of how drug traffickers resolve disputes and maintain order in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Much popular discourse and some scholarly studies argue that drug traffickers play a major role in controlling crime and minimizing conflicts there. This article shows that traffickers enforce community norms under a variable political calculus in which well-connected and respected residents are less likely to be punished for rule violations than are individuals who are marginal to the life of the community. This allows many favela residents who conform to local norms to feel a degree of control over their own safety, a "myth of personal security" in otherwise violent neighborhoods.