The politics of contested urban space: The 2013 protest movement in Brazil

ABSTRACT

In June 2013, Brazil witnessed one of its largest protest movements in history when more than 1 million Brazilians marched on city streets to demand improvements to urban life. As the epicenters of protests, cities have become an important location for examining the demands, politics, and social change strategies of contemporary citizenship. In this article, we analyze the evolution of Brazil’s protest movement. Based on participant observation, archival research, secondary data, and thick description, we conduct a historical event analysis. By examining the narratives, practices, and forms that emerged in Brazil’s 2013 protests, we argue that contemporary urban citizenship is transformed in important ways in response to both global and local changes. Policymakers and planners need to be prepared to deal with the realities of urbanization, and we offer perspectives on how citizenship can better accommodate new growth and societal changes.

Funding

The research was supported in part by the Dean’s Research Development Initiative of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Northeastern University, the Core Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, the Comissão Fulbright Brasil, and Pontifícia Universidade Católica in Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro.

Notes

1. Many terms emerged to refer to the protests that erupted in June 2013 throughout Brazil. The Brazilian Spring was a term popularized in the news coverage in United States, making the comparison to the Arab Spring in the Middle East (Wills, 2013). Other terms were used in the global media such as “V is for Vinegar,” “Salad Revolution,” and “Salad Uprising” (“Protests in Brazil,” 2013). These colorful descriptions draw attention to the use of vinegar as a remedy for the police use of tear gas (Mora, 2013). In this article, we simply refer to the protests as the June 2013 protests or as the protest movement in June 2013.

2. The favela is one of the distinct features of Brazilian urbanism. For a review of the conditions of the favelas, see M. Davis (2006), Fahlberg and Vicino (2016), Perlman (2010), and Reid (2014).

3. Our work follows in the tradition of other scholars such as Geertz (1973), Ryle (2009), Turam (2013), and Weinstein and Ren (2009).

4. There were 22 informal, open-ended interviews conducted (in Portuguese) with participants of the protests in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte during the month of June 2013. The interviewees were participants in the protests. Their responses provide context about the rationale for participating in the protests, and archival research corroborates their responses to allow us to make generalizations about their representativeness. The responses are triangulated with similar comments widely reported to other sources, including the public opinion polling, print and video news coverage, and social media.

5. The “Fora Dilma” movement, or “Out With Dilma,” involved a series of protests against the government of President Dilma Rousseff. National protests occurred on March 15, 2015; April 12, 2015; and March 13, 2016. The protesters called for the impeachment of the president and protested against the Olympics. President Dilma Rousseff was impeached and removed from office on August 31, 2016.

6. At the time, R$3.00 was equal to US$1.35 and R$3.20 was equal to US$1.45, which represented a total increase of US$0.10 per trip.

7. FIFA is the International Federation of Association Football, the worldwide governing body of professional soccer. The Confederations Cup is a soccer tournament that acts as a rehearsal for the larger World Cup tournament of the following year.

8. The MPL is a sociopolitical movement that is organized and has a long history. The group identifies itself as a movement in its name and in their activities. The World Social Forum (WSF) is described as

the largest gathering of civil society to find solutions to the problems of our time. Started in 2001 in Brazil, the WSF brings together in each of its edition tens of thousands of participants to more than a thousand activities (workshops, conferences, artistic performances …) on various themes (social, solidarity economy, environment, human rights, democratization …). (World Social Forum, 2001)

9. Smaller, more decentralized protests erupted in several cities throughout Brazil. Leading up to São Paulo protests, manifestations about public transit fares were held in the following cities: Porto Alegre (March 27); Natal (May 15); and Salvador (June 2).

10. The MPL organized protests on June 7, 2013, and June 11, 2013, in São Paulo.

11. For a history of the military dictatorship in Brazil, see Dassin (1998) and Skidmore (1988).

12. During the June 2013 protests, news reports were widely circulated that 10 people died, 250 were injured, and some 650 were arrested (Moreno, 2013).

13. Based on personal, anonymous interviews during the protest in São Paulo on June 17, 2013.

14. Support for President Rousseff decreased from 57 to 30% after the protests (Romero, 2013b).

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported in part by the Dean’s Research Development Initiative of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Northeastern University, the Core Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, the Comissão Fulbright Brasil, and Pontifícia Universidade Católica in Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro.

Notes on contributors

Thomas J. Vicino

Thomas J. Vicino is Associate Professor of Political Science, Public Policy, and Urban Affairs, and he serves as Director of the Master of Public Administration Program at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Previously, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil. His research focuses on the political economy of metropolitan development. His recent books include Global Migration (2014); Suburban Crossroads: The Fight for Local Control of Immigration Policy (2012); and Cities and Suburbs: New Metropolitan Realities in the U.S. (2010).

Anjuli Fahlberg

Anjuli Fahlberg is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Brazil, and her current research focuses on governance and citizenship in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.