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Abstract
This article uses an urban upgrading programme (PAC Favela) as a lens for examining the contextual dynamics and forms of neoliberal urban development in pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro. Critical scholarship has contended that Rio’s entrepreneurial governance and mega-event induced state of exception pushed forward a neoliberal urban agenda. While not rejecting this overarching narrative, the present article argues that this tendency was shaped by contextual politics at different scales, producing variegated forms of urban development. At the federal level, urban policy and practice under lulismo – the political ideology characterizing the 2002–2016 Workers’ Party governments – was marked by an ambition to achieve both social and economic transformation. The PAC Growth Acceleration Programme’s investments in favela upgrading were emblematic of this ambition. Through a multi-scalar case study of the social and economic interests and actors at the community, state and federal levels that engaged with PAC in the Rocinha favela in Rio, the article shows that PAC’s interventions were the outcome of contentions and confluences between citizen- and market-centred urban agendas. While the balance gradually shifted in favour of the market-centred, neoliberal agenda, outcomes should still be seen as inherently hybrid. On the one hand, the case of PAC in Rocinha presents a perspective ‘from below’ and important insights into the contested and contradictory nature of urban transformation in pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, it illustrates the necessity for contextual analyses of perceived de-politicized neoliberal entrepreneurial urban governance and development.
Notes
1 On the basis of a hierarchical classification of different cities’ importance in the global capitalist economy, Sassen (Citation2001, Citation2004) defines global cities as ‘partially denationalized platforms for global capital’ with a position of direct and tangible influence on global affairs. Global city-ness thus entails recognition as an internationally competitive political and economic actor.
2 Rio’s favelas are unplanned and highly dense urban informal settlements often characterized by precarious quality of housing and of public services like sanitation, transport and security.
3 This article conducts a retrospective study on the course of events until 2013, when PAC was haltered and a mass political reaction could be observed in the June uprisings. The fieldwork further gave material for separate articles that address the post-2013 period.
4 The 2010 census estimated a population of 70,000 (IBGE, Citation2010), but most residents view a number of 150,000–220,000 to be more accurate.
5 I do not grant much space to discuss drug gangs and public security here, but see e.g. Sørbøe (Citation2013) or Larkins (Citation2015) for the centrality of these issues to Rocinha residents’ experiences of state and citizenship.
6 Interview, male resident, 51, March 19 2016.
7 Interview, male resident, 51, March 19 2016.
8 Interview, former president, February 27 2016.
9 As discussed below, Cabral’s support was arguably also motivated by the prospect of kick-backs. Three of the construction companies that later gained lucrative contracts to conduct PAC works in the state of Rio donated to Cabral’s campaign (Folha do S. Paulo, Citation2008) and he was arrested on corruption charges in 2016.
10 Approximately USD$ 10 billion according to the 2007 exchange rate (0.5 USD/1 BRL).
11 Interview, December 10 2016.
12 Interview, November 17 2016.
13 Interview, December 12 2016.
14 Interview, December 21 2016.
15 Interview, male resident, 27, November 29 2012.
16 Interview, March 7 2016.
17 Interview, September 11 2016.
18 The federal police has opened an investigation of Rocinha’s PAC works connected to the Lava Jato corruption investigations (see Agência Brasil, Citation2017).
19 Dilma Rousseff had been elected president in 2010 as Lula’s handpicked successor.
20 Rocinha was also targeted by the controversial UPP Police programme, see e.g. Freeman (Citation2014) or Sørbøe (Citation2013).
21 Cable cars are costly; leaving less room in the budget for other projects, and require removals (Jornal do Brasil, Citation2013). The cable cars in Alemão and Providência were highly unpopular, and would be out of function in 2015 due to high maintenance costs.
22 Interview, male resident, 69, March 8 2016.
23 Interview, female resident, 28, October 21 2016.
24 With the ever-deepening political and economic crises that have enveloped Rio and Brazil since 2013, PAC2 in Rocinha was placed indeterminably on hold and neither the cable car nor other works have materialized.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Celina Myrann Sørbøe
Celina Myrann Sørbøe holds a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Oslo, where she is currently a PhD candidate in Human Geography. She lived and conducted fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro for a total of 18 months between 2012 and 2016. Her research interests include urban politics and governance, citizenship, inequality, and security politics.