Brazilian youth experiencing poverty: Everyday life in the favela

ABSTRACT

Based on a comprehensive perspective of reality, this study aimed to analyze the representations that young dwellers of a Brazilian favela have about that place, focusing on the impacts on urban mobility and everyday life. Data were collected through workshops conducted with young people attending a non-governmental organization located in a favela in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The participants were seven youngsters aged 15-21 years. During the workshops, the participants constructed a “City of Youth” with the purpose of representing what they wanted for a city. They discussed whether or not there would be a favela in this city and its residents’ access to other spaces in the city, especially to leisure areas. It was observed that poverty is an important social marker in the representations about Brazilian favelas, and that the stigma associated with them are incorporated and reproduced by their youth. These facts reflect the possibilities and impossibilities of urban mobility of young favela dwellers, directly affecting their everyday lives and limiting their opportunities for social participation and access to social life.

Partiendo de una perspectiva integral de la realidad, este estudio se propuso analizar las representaciones que los jóvenes habitantes de una favela brasileña tienen sobre la misma, centrándose en sus impactos sobre la movilidad urbana y la vida cotidiana. Los datos se recopilaron en talleres realizados con siete jóvenes de 15 a 21 años de edad, quienes asisten a una organización no gubernamental ubicada en una favela de Río de Janeiro, Brasil. Durante los talleres, y con el propósito de que representaran cómo querían que fuera una ciudad, los participantes construyeron una “Ciudad de la Juventud”. En este sentido, discutieron si en esta ciudad habría o no una favela y cómo sería el acceso de sus residentes a otros espacios de la misma, especialmente a las zonas de ocio. Se constató que la pobreza constituye un importante marcador social en las representaciones sobre las favelas brasileñas y que el estigma asociado a ellas es incorporado y reproducido por sus jóvenes. Estas observaciones reflejan las posibilidades e imposibilidades de movilidad urbana de los jóvenes habitantes de las favelas, la cual afecta directamente su vida cotidiana y limita sus oportunidades de participación social y acceso a la vida social.

基于全面的现实角度，本研究旨在分析巴西贫民窟的年轻居民对该地的表述，重点是对城市交通和日常生活的影响。数据收集于年轻人参加的一个非政府组织的讲习班，该讲习班位于巴西里约热内卢市贫民窟。参加者为7位15至21岁的年轻人。在讲习班期间，参加者建造了一个“青年之城”，以代表他们理想的城市。他们讨论了这座城市是否会有贫民区，以及居民是否可以进入城市的其他空间，尤其是休闲区。有人指出，贫穷是巴西贫民窟表征的重要社会标志，与其有关的污名由他们的青年人吸收和复制。这些事实反映了年轻的贫民窟居民在城市中流动的可能性和非可能性，这直接影响了他们的日常生活，并限制了他们参与社会活动和获得社会生活的机会。

KEYWORDS:

• Occupational science
• Poverty areas
• Right to freedom of movement
• Cities
• Leisure activities

View translated version:

Jovens brasileiros em situação de pobreza: O cotidiano na favela

Jovens brasileiros em situação de pobreza: O cotidiano na favela

We must ensure that favelas are also cities.

(Marielle Franco)

Occupational science literature has addressed occupations as the processes of being engaged in doing things that structure the social life of individuals and collectives. Occupations contribute to the production and expression of identities and support practical, material, and symbolic life, as well as processes of social participation (Galvaan, 2015). Given that occupations are “differentially shaped by political, economic, social and cultural forces” (Laliberte Rudman, 2013, p. 2), it is necessary to contemplate the social processes involved in occupation, expanding beyond an individualistic frame. The need to advance the concept of occupation beyond the individual has been recognized in occupational science and occupational therapy research over the past decade, insofar as there is an intrinsic dialectic in the individual-collective relations. Therefore, the relevance of studying social factors that influence the occupation of different groups is justified, especially in socially vulnerable populations.

This study was contextualized within Brazilian occupational therapy, specifically social occupational therapy (Malfitano et al., 2014). Due to the meanings that the word occupation has in Brazil, which are historically linked to alienation processes and moral treatment in psychiatry, the concept of occupation is not widely used in Brazilian research and scholarship (Magalhães & Galheigo, 2010; Salles & Matsukura, 2016). Instead, concepts such as cotidiano have been adopted.¹ There is no word perfectly corresponding to cotidiano in the English lexicon. The terms “everyday”, “everyday life” or “daily life” are not direct translations, and have other meanings, but in studies aimed at conceptualizing cotidiano it has been translated as everyday life (Heller, 1984).

Studies addressing the cotidiano incorporate “subjectivity, culture, history and social power as elements that influence the understanding of the phenomenon, they definitely break with any more positivist reading” (Galheigo, 2003, p. 107). Thus, the concept of cotidiano encompasses the social, historical, economic, and cultural contexts, and the forms of inclusion and collective participation of the people and groups with whom the professionals perform their actions (Galheigo, 2020).

To preserve the Brazilian historicity and vocabulary, the term everyday life will be used here as an approximation of the concept of cotidiano, highlighting the political, social, and economic issues intrinsic to its meaning. This is based on the premise of a dialogue of what is applied in this study as everyday life with the notion of occupation used in the occupational science literature (Dickie et al., 2006; Fogelberg & Frauwirth, 2010; Laliberte Rudman, 2013; Ramugondo & Kronenberg, 2015; Whiteford et al., 2018), as well as dialogue in the fields of occupational science and occupational therapy (Laliberte Rudman, 2018).

Urban Mobility and Everyday Life

Urban mobility is a social practice associated with people’s movement through urban space and the meanings that displacement can have for people’s lives (Balbim, 2016; Souza, 2014). The concept of urban mobility goes beyond the idea of physical displacement to include analysis of its causes and consequences in city life. In this context, the urban mobility of individuals and collectives is part of their everyday life, marked by their social position, and is accordingly influenced by social, political, historical, and cultural contexts.

One mark of mobility relates to the place where people live. According to Milton Santos (2007), a person’s place of residence expresses their social class and the inequality of capitalist society, because modern cities have historically been organized following capitalist logic. As a result, social segregation is noticeable in the layout of the city; each zone is assigned a value from a market logic that becomes a marker of its inhabitants’ social class. That is, the values and meanings attributed to different spaces become associated with the value of the people who live there (Santos, 1979, 2007). Therefore, the residence-based social class marker makes a person a “better or worse citizen” (Santos, 2007). Depending on where people live, they will have more or less access to different rights and will be recognized by society as better or worse citizens. Accordingly, Santos (2007) affirmed that “living in the periphery is condemning oneself to poverty twice” (p. 195). Beyond geographical distance, political distance and lack of access to information are important factors in discussing poor people’s access to rights, because these populations have “fewer effective means of reaching the sources and agents of power, about which they are poorly or insufficiently informed” (Santos, 2007, p. 91).

Urban mobility “is a crucial dimension of the right to the city, allowing integration between people and spaces” (Florentino, 2011, p. 47), and an essential dimension in the guarantee of occupational rights and occupational justice (Jónasdóttir et al., 2018). Urban mobility is most curtailed for groups marginalized by conditions such as poverty, disability, health problems, or place of residence. However, occupational scientists and therapists have predominantly explored the issue of community mobility in the physical sense (Jónasdóttir & Polgar, 2018), despite earlier calls to consider the broader scope of limitations to urban mobility (Parnell & Wilding, 2010).

Favelas

Favela is the popular name of some Brazilian plants that were common in the Canudos region, Bahia state, Brazil, where there was a war between 1896 and 1897. Many veterans of that war returned to Rio de Janeiro and gathered to live on a hill located in the city center. They named it Morro da Favela (Queiroz Filho, 2011). There are different interpretations that explain why that hill was named favela: the first is that the plant favela also existed on that hill and the second is that the hill was named after favela to associate the resistance of the Canudos War soldiers with the residents of that hill (Valladares, 2000). Currently, favelas are degraded areas of popular housing, mostly occupied by poor working people. The largest growth both in the size and number of favelas in the city of Rio de Janeiro occurred between the 1950s and 1970s, a period of intense industrialization in the city (Queiroz Filho, 2011). Since their official “emergence” to the present time, the favelas have been considered an urban “problem”.

Favelas existed even before the “favela” category was created (Valladares, 2005). In Rio de Janeiro, favelas emerged in the late 19^th century when low-income populations, who could not afford housing on the outskirts of the city and had no access to transportation, began to occupy hills in the city center so that they could live closer to their workplace (Ferreira, 2009). Debate about the definition of favela is present in the academic and popular contexts and in public policies. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), which has included favelas in the designation of “subnormal clusters” since 1987, officially defines them as comprising at least 51 poor housing units characterized by lack of property title and at least one of the following characteristics: (1) irregular traffic routes and size and shape of the plots and/or (2) general scarcity of public services (garbage collection, sewerage, water and electricity supply, and street lighting) (IBGE, 2011).

The geographic features of Rio de Janeiro mean favelas are not only located on the outskirts of the city, but throughout it, including upper middle class neighborhoods. However, even with this geographical proximity to other neighborhoods, the favelas are still stigmatized as violent places dominated by criminal organizations, with no State presence. Favela dwellers carry this stigma and as a consequence do not have the right to enter the city’s prime areas. Thus, favela dwellers have their urban mobility restricted because of their place of residence and, consequently, have their right to the city curtailed (Silva & Barbosa, 2013).

This study was conducted with young people attending a non-governmental organization (NGO) located in a favela in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2018. (See Figure 1). The neighborhood had a population of 69,143 inhabitants, with 87% (60,500) living in this favela, making it the 4^th largest favela in the city in absolute numbers (Cavallieri & Vial, 2012). The region is characterized by high poverty rates, with 62.9% of its residents living on a per capita income between a quarter and one Brazilian minimum wage, which corresponds to a monthly income of 60-240 USD.² This favela also has one of the worst Social Progress Indices (SPI)³ in Rio de Janeiro, occupying the 149^th position among the 158 neighborhoods of the city, presenting a low SPI (0.47) (Cavallieri & Lopes, 2008). The presence of criminal organizations linked to drug trafficking, conflicts with the police, and the constant news associating this region with violent practices have made this favela, in the popular imagination, an extremely dangerous neighborhood (Alvarenga Filho, 2016; Corrêa, 2013).

Figure 1. The favela where the present study was carried out. Source: Photograph by Luiz Rafael Neto, a young photographer and collaborator in this research. Published with the author’s permission. Available at: https://sites.google.com/view/cotidianoluiz/home.

In their study of favelas in Rio de Janeiro, J. S. Silva and Barbosa (2013) found that favela dwellers do not have rights comparable to residents of the city’s upscale neighborhoods, and this idea is present in the social imagination. This idea is constructed in the face of representations from the media and the public leaders, as well as from the ruling classes. It can be said that they are second class citizens who are seen as complicit and conniving with actions of criminal organizations. Young people especially are seen as potential criminals living under the principle of “criminal subjection” (Misse, 2018); that is, they are marked to be bandits because of their poverty and status as favela dwellers. About these young people, Leite and Machado da Silva (2013) indicated that “despite the internal diversity, this segment has been homogenized and transformed into a problem … linked to the new modalities of violent crime associated with drug trafficking gangs present in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro” (p. 150).

The stigmatization of poor young people marks them throughout their lives and, directly or indirectly, violates their rights. Malfitano (2011) affirmed that the demarcation of social class is fundamental. Within capitalist societies, access to social rights and material goods is intrinsically linked to social class, which ultimately directly influences the life perspectives and possibilities of young people. Hence, poverty is an essential marker in the lives of many young Brazilians, which was clear in the lives of those young favela dwellers. One of its results of the poverty present in favelas, added to the stigma experienced by their dwellers – especially the young, who are almost ‘naturally’ associated with criminality (Misse, 2018) – is the restriction of urban mobility, notably that of young people (Carneiro, 2009; Cassab & Mendes, 2011; Cecchetto & Farias, 2009; Savegnago, 2018; Veloso & Santiago, 2017). In this context, our goal is to increase the visibility of young favela dwellers by focusing on their urban mobility. More specifically, this study aimed to investigate the representations that young dwellers of a Brazilian favela in Rio de Janeiro have about that place, focusing on whether these representations have an impact on their urban mobility.

Study Methodology

This study was based on a comprehensive perspective of reality (Bourdieu, 1996), considering that socially situated individuals establish meanings, intentionalities, and explanatory theories about the world and the social structures in which they live. Consequently, reflexivity for comprehension of the social structure cannot be dissociated from the historical-cultural context of the object investigated, as well as from its critique (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992).

Comprehension of reality, following critical reflexivity, is considered essential to approach social change. Focusing on the possibilities of change, with the challenge to think social actions together with young favela dwellers, we consider the process of critical reflexivity about that reality fundamental. It is also part of the reflexivity needed to clarify our place: we work at the University, articulating projects in partnership with communities; however, we do not live in favelas. We can try to understand that reality, informed by theoretical studies and the project that we have been working on, but we do not have the concrete experience of living there. We endeavor to create horizontal relationships and value the knowledge of all involved, especially that of the young dwellers. Nevertheless, we understand that there is a difference related to social class and race between our position and their position, which cannot be ignored in this process.

Bourdieu (1996) called this process “understanding”, emphasizing the necessity of engaging insistently and deeply to reflect about reality. Bourdieu did not propose a systematic method to analyze data, because for him the involvement was more important than the technique. He argued that the position of the researcher, the “sociological feel or eye”, creates a point of view. However, it will be always a point of view: “[it] must never ignore that the specific characteristic of her point of view is to be a point of view on a point of view” (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 34). Consequently, this text presents our understanding, influenced by our social position; in other words, our point of view. It is informed by our connection with young people, which was possible because of the bond constructed during the project. We are seeking to highlight the voice of youth from critical perspective.

Research based on a critical perspective, involved with the reality of study, has been defended in the academia (Farias et al., 2016; Ravenek & Laliberte Rudman, 2013), as well as participatory studies which consider the actors as collaborators and builders of the knowledge under discussion (Little, 2017; O’Reilly-de Brún et al., 2018). Based on this framework, through a critical perspective, data in this study were generated from participatory workshops conducted with young people. In social occupational therapy, these workshops are defined as:

spaces consisting of social grouping in which proposals associated with doing and human action that promote shared learning are established. The active character of the individual and the dynamic character of these relational experiences are highlighted in this process: between participants, space, materials, memory, and sensations. (C. R. Silva, 2007, p. 213)

The use of workshops has expanded from practice tools for some occupational therapists to the collection of research data. Within such workshops, occupations and collective projects are performed, with a focus on doing together. Workshops aim to enable participants to show how they represent reality, which means, how they feel, think, and do. As a consequence, workshops are a powerful research method to reveal how people, including youth, express the participatory process they engage in by means of words, images, and narratives (Pereira & Malfitano, 2014).

In this study, all workshops were held at a local NGO with the participation of seven young dwellers of the favela, of all gender identities, aged 15-21 years. The participants were involved voluntarily in response to an invitation from the first author. The youth had previously attended other activities at the NGO, and they agreed to collaborate in this study. For them, what we were proposing meant one more possibility to participate in activities related to the context of the NGO.

Four workshops were held over a month, with attendance ranging from all seven participants down to only two. The workshops were documented in a field diary and using photos and videos. The project received ethics approval from the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Sao Carlos (CEP-UFSCar, Brazil; protocol n°. 2.761.319). An informed consent form that authorized the use of the images of the workshop was voluntarily signed by the participants with legal age (>18 years old) and by the parents/legal guardians of those underage. The research project is associated with a partnership between the university and the community, involving the participation of occupational therapy undergraduate students supervised by the first author.

The theme of the workshop was chosen by the first author and aimed to approach the mobility issue. At the first meeting, in addition to a large sheet of kraft paper placed on the floor, drawing and painting materials and other art supplies such as colored papers, magazines, strings, glue, and scissors were made available. The young participants were presented with the proposal to represent a “Street of Youth”, with spaces, institutions, and places that they would like to access and considered important for young people in general. On the first day, the youth participants discussed what this street would look like and decided to build a central square, with several streets converging to a common point. With the increase in the structure that had been created on paper, the youngsters decided to broaden the street and transform it into a “City of Youth” (See Figure 2). During the discussion, we introduced some questions trying to clarify what they were approaching in their reflections. The process was very intensive and, as a result, the workshop that had been intended to be only one day was expanded to continue for three more meetings. All workshops were started with the question: “What would an ideal city for youth be like?”. After that, we did not direct the process, giving space to free production by the young people.

Figure 2. The first workshop for the construction of the City of Youth held in September 2018.

After data collection and transcription, both authors engaged in the analysis guided by the question: “Como é a mobilidade dos jovens moradores de favelas? [How is the mobility of young people living in the favela?]”. We chose two categories to illustrate the discussion, which reflected our point of view, our understanding of that reality (Bourdieu, 1996). The first category was “Representações da favela pelos jovens participantes [Representations of the favelas by the young participants]”, which aimed to reflect on how young people, all favela dwellers, understand the favela and its place in the city. For this analysis, we conducted a literature search for texts on the historical constitution of favelas, from their beginning to the present time, focusing on the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the second category, “Impactos da percepção social da favela na mobilidade urbana cotidiana dos jovens moradores [Impacts of the social perception of the favela on the urban mobility and everyday life of young dwellers]”, we sought to articulate perceptions about the favelas and the everyday life of these young people, focusing on their urban mobility.

On completion of the analysis, illustrative quotes were translated from Portuguese to English by a linguistic professional. The accuracy of the quotes was checked by the authors.

Findings

During the process of constructing the City of Youth, the first “structure” built was a square, on which several streets converged. This square was connected to other squares. The young people decided to draw a museum in the largest square and, next to it, they built a theater and a cinema; they connected the three squares and discussed how they would reach such places from other parts of the city. During the workshop, one of the young participants highlighted the relevance of many streets connecting the square, because “accessibility is essential”.

The young participants designed a park, arguing that it was important for their sociability and leisure. They used parks they knew in other parts of the city as a reference. Near the park they added a forest and a river, representing a concern to ensure space for nature in the city.

One of the things that the youngsters said they liked to do on weekends was walking around the local stores. They reported enjoying window shopping, knowing what is in fashion, and eating snacks. To accommodate this demand, they built a mall area in the city, as well as a disco and a shopping mall.

Two areas associated with leisure and fun gained prominence in the construction of the city: a public swimming pool and the beach. These two spaces are very representative in the lives of these young people, as they live in a city known worldwide for its beaches and high temperatures all year round. The design of these two places was permeated with discussion about the role and location of the favela in the city.

Symbolic and geographical location of the favela in the City of Youth

Discussion about the existence and location of a favela in the City of Youth was central during its collective construction. This debate began when the young participants set aside an area on one side of the sheet of kraft paper to build a favela in the city, and then decided to draw the beach on the opposite side. One of the young boys justified the choice because the beach is really far from the favela, at least from the one where they live. Also, it was possible to understand that the discussion about the location of the favela, placed on the “edges” of the paper sheet, located it far from the center where most of the city services they were building were located.

At that moment, we realized the young people were representing a city that was similar to the real city they know and live in. After that, they continued to think of more leisure alternatives and proposed a public swimming pool that, like all other leisure areas in the city, would also be far from the favela. Upon this decision, we questioned the participants’ statement as to why the pool would have to be away from the favela, and one of them replied, naturally, that if the pool were near the favela “it would become a disorder”.

In an attempt to deepen the discussion, we asked the young participants if favela dwellers have no right to go to the swimming pool, and they instantly answered no, reaffirming the same reason: disorder. One of the youths stated, “we go to the pool, favela dwellers go to the beach!”. None of the other young people challenged this statement, which led us to question how they identified themselves in relation to their place of residence? Who are favela dwellers after all?

The construction of the swimming pool in the City of Youth made sense after we learned about the history of a public swimming pool in a school in that favela. This pool was open to the public, but it was closed after a fatal accident with a child. However, the pool continued to be overrun by residents until it was emptied and permanently closed. According to some local residents, there are still public swimming pools that open in summer and can be used upon payment of a fee, but the participants did not mention these pools during the city construction activity.

Continuing the discussion about the favela, we asked the young participants if the favela residents would not have their access to the beach and the pool hindered, since their spatial location was far from the favela in the city they were building. One of them replied that there would be no problem, because they could take a bus if they wanted to go to these places.

A surprise during the discussion was the fact that one of the young participants in this study, a 16-year-old, reported that he had never been to the beach. He said his mother would not let him go anywhere alone, that he needed to be accompanied by a responsible person, but that the other youngsters in the favela, even the older ones, would not be good company because “young people from the favela are very irresponsible, even the older ones”. However, he reported that he could take a walk with one of the university students participating in the project (an occupational therapy undergraduate student), because even though she was young (21 years old), “she is responsible, unlike the favela residents”. He also added that his mother is afraid of him being in an unfamiliar neighborhood because “he could be robbed and would not know how to react”.

During the workshops, talking about the “real” city, Rio de Janeiro, the young people also said that they feel uncomfortable in some other neighborhoods, either because “people look at them in a suspicious way”, or because they fear that those areas are controlled by criminal groups rivaling those that control the favela in which they live. They also reported being “afraid of getting lost”, because they do not know the other regions and even lack information about places they could go to, many of them for free, such as museums, theaters, beaches, and parks.

The topic of the favela disappeared and returned several times during the construction of the City of Youth in more than one meeting. This fact led us to realize that, although significant for young people, thinking about living in the favela is still a difficult theme to be more comprehensively discussed due to the contradictory views they have about this place. One of the young participants, during a reflection in one of the workshops, said that he did not want to draw a favela in the city they were building, and justified that “all residents in our city will have a decent life, with a house and a yard”. The youngster’s claim was refuted by another youth who questioned if that meant: “Are we not decent?”. The first youth explained to the others that, in the favela, there are different housing conditions, which include residences without water supply and sewerage, with few rooms, and a large number of residents. However, the other youth insisted on the need for the favela, as it would be a place where immigrants who come to the city to work could live, and that the favela “is a cool place, where there is a school and so forth”.

This attention to migration relates to the history of favelas. The flow of migrants from rural to urban areas has increased since the late 1940s and early 1950s, increasing the number of migrant residents in city favelas (Valladares, 2005). To end the debate, the first youngster, who did not want to design the favela, said “this is the city we created; it is not Rio de Janeiro … here there will be a place for immigrants. This will be a better place”.

Subsequently, the young participants considered including a police station, but decided not to, for their ideal city would not have violence, because: “Our city is so safe that we do not need a police station”. Despite this desire, there was questioning from the group: “But would that be possible in the real world?”. It is worth noting that the dynamics of violence are strongly experienced in the favela, either through illegality, such as organizations involved in drug trafficking, or through legality, in the relationship with the police, which is usually violent. Such debates made us reflect on the meaning and representations that those young people have about the favelas. At the time the workshops were conducted, conflicts between the police and local drug dealers were recurrent there. One of the young participants stated throughout the workshops that he “would like live in a quiet place. Not rich, but calm”.

At the end of the construction of the city, the swimming pool and the beach were represented, but the favela, which was drawn and erased several times, was not included. It can be inferred that, for the young workshop participants, the favela was not a place they would like to have in their city at that time. (See Figure 3).

Figure 3. The City of Youth built during the workshops.

Discussion

Representations of the favela by the young workshop participants

As previously mentioned, favelas have been considered an urban and social problem since their “emergence”, by both the State and the population in general. Since the beginning, this fact has prompted favela residents to organize into collective movements to seek to ensure rights and better living conditions in the favela, while aiming to change people's perceptions about them. These movements have caused the population’s and scholars’ views of favelas to change over time (Valladares, 2005). According to Valladares (2005), between 1950 and 1970, scholars began to value the favelas by referring to them as communities and addressing them in social science fieldwork. However, the view was still based on the theory of social marginality, and the stigma of dangerousness remained in their studies. In the 1980s, “the identification of favela as a place of poverty and marginality was counterbalanced by its valorization as the cradle of samba, carnival, popular culture and its representation as a community” (Leite, 2012, p. 378). In the 1990s, however, the favelas were seen almost exclusively as places of violence and insecurity, reinforcing the previously existing negative stigma (Leite, 2012).

In 2008, the Police Pacification Program (UPP)⁴ began to be implemented in the city of Rio de Janeiro and, consequently, there was a move towards valorization of the favelas. Although they were still seen as violent places where the police or the armed forces were needed, they also began to receive public investment for tourism, such as the construction of cable cars and provision of guided tours. The favela where this study was carried out was one of the first to receive a UPP unit, and had great media visibility at the time. However, at the same time it received a cable car that was widely explored for tourism in the region, given that it offered a privileged view of the city of Rio de Janeiro and had been the scene of a soap opera on the largest Brazilian television station, the stigma of violence remained (Corrêa, 2013; Corrêa et al., 2016; Pérez, 2014).

Despite these changes in discourse, a stigmatized view of the Brazilian favelas is still present and is greatly influenced by the mass media. As a result of the construction by the media, the State, and the ruling classes, the favelas have a negative representation amongst the urban population, which extends to all its residents, including the favela dwellers, who end up being seen as collaborating with illegal actions of the criminal organizations that are based on the hills.

It was possible to notice that the young participants of this study, favela dwellers, also perceived them from a stigmatizing view. Favelas are a place of “rowdiness” and disorder. They even said that they were not favela dwellers when they justified: “we go to the pool, favela dwellers go to the beach!”. This perception of the favela as a place of disorder demonstrates the view of this place as an urban problem. The stigmas about the favelas and their residents also lead to a representation of apparent homogeneity between them and their residents. The young participants in this research had a contradictory view of their social place. Sometimes they saw themselves as favela dwellers; sometimes they placed themselves “outside” this group.

The locality studied here is composed of a cluster of different favelas, with different histories and realities. There are places where armed conflicts between police and traffickers are more frequent, and where illegal drug trafficking activity is most visible. For residents, this configuration differentiates the ways of life in the different favelas. The young participants in the study sometimes reported living in more “privileged” areas of the favela. For instance, when speaking of another favela in the same neighborhood, they reported that is also located near the NGO; that “it is very dangerous there; there are a lot of bandits”. At the same time, they approached the favela as a place of poverty and violence, as perceived by the youngster who said he would like to live in a calm place, but not necessarily rich. However, despite their differences, all favelas fall into the same category within the social imagination. Several authors refute a homogeneous view of the favelas, and claim that it is necessary to understand them from their singularities and heterogeneities. What remains clear is that the everyday life of those people is marked by the fact that as favela dwellers they are stigmatized because of where they live.

Cruz (2007), in a study conducted in a favela in another Brazilian state, reported that favela residents had been trying to change the discourse about the favela, raising pride for being a favela dweller, or a “favelado”. Although being a favelado sometimes still leads to negative stigma, there are now collective movements of resignification of the favela and favela dweller categories. According to Burgos (2009), the favela “has become an instrument of struggle and identity reaffirmation” (p. 52). Nevertheless, according to Cruz, “although there is this intention, speeches of the residents themselves are strongly influenced by the discourse about favela delivered by the ‘other’” (p. 88). Young people, while demonstrating this ambiguity and reproducing some stereotypes about the favela, such as disorder, also claim a place of dignity for themselves and are indignant at the hypothesis that their colleague mentioned that favela dwellers were not decent people. Eventually, they said: “the favela is a cool place”.

Impacts of the social image of favela on the urban mobility and everyday life of young dwellers

The social image of the favela, that is, how people in the city see it, is important because it influences the life conditions of all its residents, impacting directly on their everyday life. The social image impacts on the concrete life conditions, which can be observed in many situations, such as fewer chances of finding a job that would provide money to live.

Another example, especially for young people, is the experience of criminal subjection (Misse, 2018), demonstrating the mark of social class and place in everyday life, which was observed in situations inside and outside the scope of this study. As an example of the inequity between neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro, we recall an event in 2015 when the buses connecting the peripheries to the beaches in the south zone (a rich and tourist area of the city) were pulled over by the military police. Fifteen youngsters were approached, 14 of whom were African Brazilian descendants, and none carried guns or drugs, as reported by the local press. The officers justified the approach on the basis that they did not carry ID cards or “did not have money to go to the beach”. The case had major repercussion in the mass media at the time which, coupled with changes in the city’s bus lines, was interpreted by many as a form of isolation from the city’s richest neighborhoods—camouflaged by a safety and security discourse—intensifying the existing urban segregation (Savegnago, 2018).

Place of residence is an important marker regarding youth experiences, as well as the stigma experienced by young people (Novaes, 2006), given that subjectivity and spatiality are intrinsically related (Pérez, 2014). Juvenile identities both produce and are produced from their way of living and transiting in spaces, whereby “they [young people] recognize themselves and speak from one place, and if this space undergoes changes and ruptures, the images produced [about them by the society] also do” (Novaes, 2006, p. 2). Space is an “active and defining element of the juvenile condition … traversed by countless spatial experiences, young people (re)define their existence from an intense and complex set of relationships that also affect their subjectivity” (Cassab, 2018, pp. 11-14). Therefore, place of residence is a form of identification of young individuals, because it is the basis from which young people begin to weave their social network, build social bonds, and understand the history, culture, possibilities and impossibilities of their everyday lives.

The study process and the discussion about the City of Youth reaffirmed these principles previously identified in the literature, when the youngsters reported that their friendships and mobility were restricted to the vicinity of the NGO. Outside the NGO, they performed most of their occupations with their families, especially leisure occupations. The things they reported enjoying doing were all nearby or in the favela where they lived, which was also where they attended school. One of them reported “walking everywhere”, but it became clear during the study period that all these places were within the favela.

It can consequently be inferred that the stigma associated with the neighborhood where they live directly interfered with the everyday life of these young people and their possibility of urban mobility, initially because this population is negatively represented in social common sense. Negative stigmatization also falls on the residents’ representations of themselves, because a space is endowed with meanings, life, and function (Santos, 2007). Based on this, we understand that each of the many different spaces created by young people has a different representation for them. In the case of our young participants, because they are residents of a large favela, the negative representations about that place appeared explicitly in their accounts. This was expressed when they were discussing the existence or otherwise of a favela in the City of Youth, as well as the right of favela dwellers to use the public swimming pool they designed. This finding is in accord with Cecchetto and Farias’ (2009) assertion that perception of the place of residence as an identity marker is very present in youth groups. In the case of Rio de Janeiro, there is a clear differentiation between residents of different regions of the city, or between residents of the “hill” and the “asphalt”.⁵

These negative representations about favelas have an impact on the urban mobility and everyday life of the youth who participated in the study. This is because these young people perceive young favela dwellers as “disorderly”. As moving about the city and having access to different places is an action valued in contemporary society, those who do not follow the “norms” of social life should not have the right to urban mobility. As expressed by Cecchetto and Farias (2009): “It is based on the importance given by complex societies to this principle of moving about territories that one can understand how the notion of punishment against violation of social rules is associated with confinement” (pp. 226-227). Therefore, the young favela dwellers do not see themselves as individuals with rights to free movement throughout the city.

We observed the reproduction of the social image of the favela between the young participants. This reproduction, in an acritical way, articulated with their poor life conditions, the poor public transportation available, the impact of stigma in everyday life, and the restriction of urban mobility for those young people. This was observed when they verbalized that favela residents would not be entitled to attend the swimming pool, and that they should take a bus to go to other places, such as the beach, the mall, the museum and the theater. In other words, the favela should be far from some places and dependent on public transportation availability. It is worth noting that they designed houses on the beach of the City of Youth, but at no time reported that they would live or would like to live in these houses.

Castro (2004) pointed out that different cities are designed for the urban poor youth: the real city (the one through which they effectively circulate), the possible city (the one that can be accessed, even if not in everyday life), and the forbidden city (the one that is not known and cannot be accessed). In this sense, it can be said that the forbidden city is due to concrete, as well as symbolic, factors, and that “the amplitude of each one of these cities is extremely variable, since for some people the real city and the possible city are designed incompletely” (Castro, 2004, p. 95). The young participants of the study reported some reasons that restricted their mobility in the city, including the limited availability and cost of public transportation. All the youngsters used only the buses because they were cheaper than the subway; however, bus lines running by the favelas had recently been reduced by local government.

When discussing the place and existence of a favela in the City of Youth, the youngsters showed how the opposing view between the favela and the city are still present in the popular imagination. That view is consistent with Ribeiro and Lago’s (2001) claim that the historical representations about the favelas cause them to be understood as belonging to “another social and cultural world, as if they were a ‘separate city’” (p. 144). According to J. S. Silva (2007), this understanding needs to be changed, recognizing that favelas are constituent elements of the city. One way to promote this paradigm shift that has been described in the literature is to start thinking about the similarities of favela and the rest of the city, rather than evidence of its differences (L. P. Silva, 2009). Therefore, understanding the everyday life of poor youth necessarily involves understanding favelas.

In this study, the proposal to collectively construct a city enabled discussion and reflection on what an ideal city for young people would be like. The young participants were able to express their views and contradictions about the city, the favela, and their right to urban mobility through different spaces. It is understood that workshops can be an important means of seeking reflection and awareness of individuals and collectives about various aspects of their everyday lives (Ramugondo, 2015).

Conclusion

The favela where this study was conducted was considered, for a long time, by the media and the popular imagination as the most violent neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Despite some recent initiatives to change its representation, it remains socially negatively conceived. Such stigmatization interferes with the political and social participation of its residents and with access to social rights, such as the right to the city. The particularities of that place are directly associated with the everyday life and how its youth experience being residents, and openly affect their urban mobility.

This study used workshops that brought youth from that area and researchers together to know a specific reality of social vulnerability. These workshops enabled collective reflection of young people about the construction of the city and its relations with the favela, as well as the different representations about it. Limitations to this study include the fact that it was conducted with a specific and local population of only seven youngsters. However, based on critical, participatory, and qualitative work, it could be understood as a reading of reality, offering elements for continued dialogue to build a comprehensive perspective of that reality. The use of other methodologies for data collection and analysis, such as ethnography and cartography, for instance, as well as the reproduction of workshops held in different locations for comparative analysis, could contribute to a more comprehensive discussion on urban mobility and its implications on the everyday life of individuals and groups living in socially vulnerable situations determined by their place of residence.

Although the data are not groundbreaking in terms of what has been reported in the human and social sciences literature on the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, reaffirming that poverty is one of the important social markers in representations about Brazilian favelas, research on this theme is essential if we seek to understand the everyday life of those young people. Young favela dwellers are still associated with disorder and rowdiness, and this representation is reproduced by the favela youth themselves, perpetuating stigmas. This fact directly affects the possibilities and impossibilities of urban mobility of young favela dwellers, openly impacting their everyday lives, restricting their opportunities for social participation and access to social life. Highlighting this discussion as a social problem is the first step towards creating a new culture that seeks to overcome such stigmas in favor of diversity and conditions of more justice and access to rights for all, which should include young favela dwellers.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the director of the Non-Governmental Organization where the research took place and the young participants of the workshops for their availability. This study is part of the first author’s PhD study, supervised by the second author. The research was developed within the Occupational Therapy Postgraduate Program, Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil.

Disclosure statement

This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazil, Finance Code 001.

Notes

1 The concept of cotidiano was adopted in occupational therapy research in the 1990s, in response to critique of the individualistic practices of the profession, specifically those that brought an instrumental and technical perspective to the understanding of life.

2 Values refer to the minimum wage and its conversion to USD in October 2019.

3 The SPI index is based on the Human Development Index (HDI) calculated by the United Nations. The index ranges on a scale from 0 to 1 (0 = lowest value; 1 = highest value). It was used to evaluate 10 four-dimensional variables in the present study: (A) Access to Basic Sanitation Dimension: (1) Percentage of households with adequate water supply service - those which have internal plumbing and are connected to the general network, (2) Percentage of households with adequate sewage service - those connected to the general network, (3) Percentage of households with adequate garbage collection service - those with direct or indirect garbage collection; (B) Housing Quality Dimension: (4) Average number of toilets per person, (C) Schooling Dimension: (5) Percentage of illiteracy in people aged >15 years, (6) Percentage of heads of household with <4 years of schooling, (7) Percentage of heads of household with ≥15 years of schooling; (D) Income Availability Dimension: (8) Average income of heads of household in minimum wages, (9) Percentage of heads of household with income ≥2 minimum wages, (10) Percentage of heads of household with income ≥10 minimum wages (Cavallieri & Lopes, 2008).

4 The Police Pacification Program aims “to restore, through military police bases located in the favelas, the control of these territories to the State, preventing their dominance by drug trafficking armed gangs” (Leite, 2012, p. 382).

5 The expressions “hill” and “asphalt” are used, especially in Rio de Janeiro, to refer to the contradictions and differences between the favelas (hills) and the rest of the city (asphalt).