Removal, resistance and the right to the Olympic city: The case of Vila Autodromo in Rio de Janeiro

ABSTRACT

On the same October day in 2009 that the International Olympic Committee announced the 2016 Summer Olympics would be held in Rio de Janeiro, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro announced that Vila Autódromo—a fairly small favela in the west part of the city, crowded between a lagoon, an automobile racetrack, and a busy highway, and ultimately the Olympic Park—would be removed as part of the infrastructure plan designed to prepare the city for the Games. This article examines the case of Vila Autódromo, and the resistance of favela residents to being forcibly removed from their community, to provide insight into the sources of opposition and resistance to urban development. The practice of forced evictions in the name of urban development will be explored as a manifest form of marginalization in the context of Olympic development. Rather than concealing urban problems, urban spectacles such as the Olympics serve to highlight social inequalities and display highly contradictory urban representations that can spawn agendas of resistance that serve to complicate elite redevelopment agendas and divide progrowth coalitions.

Notes

^1. Favela Bairro is the Inter-American Development Bank-funded, US$180 million slum-to-neighborhood project initiated in 1995, which sought to integrate existing favelas into the fabric of the city through infrastructure service upgrades. By 2008, Favela–Bairro had reached 168 favelas across the city.

^2. Favelado is the term used to designate residents of favela communities.

^3. Carioca is the general term used to designate people from the city of Rio de Janeiro.

^4. Mayor Paes interview with the program Roda Viva, from Brazil Television Network in March 2011.

^5. This is consistent, for example, with a failed attempt in 2003 to build a (largely underwater) branch of the Guggenheim Museum in Rio’s port district, the brainchild of the previous mayor, Cesar Maia, which was to be financed by Rio as part of a larger project to revive the port. The blighted port area, seen by the municipality as the city’s historic heart was eventually transformed just in advance of the 2016 Olympics.

^6. Mayor Paes interview with the program Roda Viva, from Brazil Television Network in March 2011.

^7. (Brasil, 2013, p. 12.)

^8. I am obviously unable to examine the varied aspects of the right to the city literature in this article. It is my intention here only to briefly connect its theorization to urban resistance and citizenship.

^9. Penha’s home was removed in March 2016. In June 2015, she had her nose broken by police when trying to protect a fellow resident from being forcibly (and illegally) removed.

^10. This statement, from June 2015—2 weeks after she had her nose broken by the municipal guard, when the community attempted to prevent the city from carrying out an extra judicial demolition—is illustrative of the sense of connection that those who wish to remain in the community feel to VA.

^11. Despite a devastating secessionist victory, the vote was annulled due to low turnout, and Barra remains part of Rio.

^12. Human Development Index is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable, and having a decent standard of living.

^13. The new City of Rock, built in 2011, is located on the same lagoon just southwest of the Vila Autódromo.

^14. Because these are legally public lands, the community residents could not receive a final property ownership title.

^15. A distance that could be appealed and negotiated down to about 35 ft.

^16. During the time he was the administrator of the Barra da Tijuca area, Paes was linked to a right-wing party, the Partido da Frente Liberal, the same of the ex-mayor. In 1998, he was elected congressman, winning by the highest margin in Rio de Janeiro history. Today he is linked to the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, one of the most important parties that supported the Lula and Rouseff governments.

^17. It is reported that, in 1993, the then submayor came with the demolition team to the entrance of the community threatening to demolish the houses that had already been marked by the Office of the Secretary of Municipal Housing. This resident stood in front of the tractor and said that he would have to run over him first. The episode triggered a series of protests and the residents closed both entrances to the community for many days (Olaussen, 2012).

^18. Catalytic Communities (CatComm), a local NGO, took dozens of journalists and academics to communities across Rio to talk with residents about the impact of the Olympics and other challenges. Indeed, it was the Executive Director of CatComm, Theresa Williamson who introduced me to the Vila Autódromo community in 2014, and whose work and passion for social justice in marginalized Rio de Janeiro continue to inspire my own work.

^19. Under the Minha Casa, Minha Vida program as described in the following.

^20. These funds were administered by the city and payment to the community was suspended pending the outcome of this struggle.

^21. Replacement housing was constructed and financed through the federal housing program Minha Casa, Minha Vida (MCMV), Brazil’s first-ever effort at large-scale public housing, a nationwide program tasked with constructing 3.4 million homes as part of a broader effort to upgrade and modernize the nation’s cities. Over half of MCMV properties in Rio are located in the West Zone, a huge, largely underserviced region. These housing developments have been widely criticized by residents for lacking adequate infrastructure and transportation links. Residents who work in the South Zone or in Centro (where most employment opportunities are) must now endure significantly longer commutes, making continued employment in the city’s commercial center difficult. Several MCMV properties have also been criticized for poor construction quality (Healy, 2014).

^22. According to the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the price paid for the land on which Parque Carioca sits (R$19.9 million)—purchased with MCMV funds from large contributors to city hall—was much too high. Another irregularity pointed out by a technical report from the Fundação Instituto Geotécnica do Rio de Janeiro (Geotechnics Foundation of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro) states that the location of Parque Carioca is an area of landslide risk (Rubim, 2013).

^23. In June 2013, protests in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and other Brazilian cities, originally set off by a 10-cent hike in public transport fares, moved beyond that issue to tap into widespread frustration in Brazil about a heavy tax burden, politicians widely viewed as corrupt, and woeful public education, health and transport systems, as the nation spent large sums on preparations for the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games.

^24. The Olympic Creed by Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the International Olympic Committee and considered the father of the modern Olympic Games.

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Notes on contributors

Sukari Ivester

Sukari Ivester is an Assistant professor of Sociology at California State University, East Bay, with broad interests in urban history, gentrification and urban development and the politics of resistance. With a specialization as a Brazilianist, her recent work has focused on the social impacts of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics, as well as a historical project on Rio de Janeiro. Dr. Ivester teaches Urban Sociology, The Olympics and Urban Development and the Sociology of Brazil. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago.