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ABSTRACT
State entities in Brazil have rolled out numerous programs to “integrate” precarious settlements into the so-called formal city of Rio de Janeiro. Two of the most visceral integration projects in Rio’s favelas have been infrastructural upgrading and public security via military police occupation. Drawing on participant observation, interviews, and policy analysis, in this paper I trace how these projects attempt to formalize land, labor, and behavior in a complex of favelas called Complexo do Alemão. Inspired by postcolonial urban approaches to formalization, I argue that formality/informality as it operates through these projects is, in part, a performative distinction deployed by the state, echoing elite and popular socio-spatial imaginaries. I add, however, that non-state actors are also involved in their own practices of formalization. Residents themselves are re-making diverse forms of property, employment, and behavior through processes of subversive formalization, informed by their geographically-embedded and historical relationships with one another.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Such entities include SindRio (a syndicate of hotels, bars, and restaurants); Viva Rio (an NGO offering courses in journalism and photography); Pro-Natura Brasil (an NGO specialized in constructing sustainable economic development); Coca-Cola (the corporation offering Coca-Cola Rooms for training youth in retail); and Shell (the oil giant focusing on the so-called green reform of football fields) (Rio+Social, Citation2016).
2. This, despite the fact that these communities have always been crucial to shifting spatial configurations of power, profit, and politicization in Rio (see Arias, Citation2006; Caldeira, Citation2017; Cavalcanti, Citation2014b; Fischer, Citation2008; McCann, Citation2014; Telles, Citation2015).
3. Interview with senior officials at ITERJ, April 2014.
4. This logic is based on the thoughts of Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto: by extending property rights people will be able to participate in the “formal” economy. De Soto believes that people who live in so-called “informal slums” have an inherent entrepreneurial ethos, and thus work towards profit when their “dead capital” is turned into “liquid capital” (AlSayyad, Citation2004; Roy, Citation2011).
5. Interview with EMOP official, Rio de Janeiro, March 2014.
6. Interview with official at SEHAB, January 2014.
7. Interview with senior officials at ITERJ, April 2014.
8. Interview with Complexo resident 4, January 2014.
9. See also the short documentary by Thiago Firmino and Tandy (Citation2013) on Light in pacified favelas.
10. Interview with Complexo activist 5, March 2015.
11. Interview with Complexo resident 8, March 2015.
12. Cadastro Nacional de Pessoa Jurídica (CNPJ) is the number that registers a legal person or entity with the Receita Federal do Brasil (essentially the IRS of Brazil) and is “necessary so that the legal person can have the capacity to carry out business, make contracts, sue, or be sued” (Prefeitura RJ, Citationn.d.).
13. AgeRio (the State Agency for Development of Rio) administers the state’s Fundo UPP Empreendedor (UPP Entrepreneur Fund) created in 2011 through state law 6.139/2011.
14. Interview with Complexo tour operator, June 2014.
15. The presence of pacification, Lucas argues, has further slowed business, as the area continues to be deemed by popular media as unsafe despite the new infrastructural works. Tourism has continued to plummet as the pacification violence has increased in the last two years and as the teleferico has ceased operations.
16. Interview with official at SEHAB, January 2014.
17. Interview with official at SEHAB, January 2014.
18. Interview with official at SEHAB, January 2014.
19. Interview with João, January 2014.
20. Interview with MCMV resident 2, February 2014.