Favela : four decades of living on the edge in Rio de Janeiro

445 Pages·2010·7.92 MB·English

by  Janice Perlman

f a v e l a
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Favela
four decades of liv ing on the edge in rio de janeiro
Janice Perlman
1

3
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Copyright ©  by Janice E. Perlman
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perlman, Janice E.
Favela : four decades of living on the edge in Rio de Janeiro / Janice Perlman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN ----
. Slums—Brazil—Rio de Janeiro. . Poor—Brazil—Rio de Janeiro. . Violent crimes—
Social aspects—Brazil—Rio de Janeiro. . Drugs—Brazil—Rio de Janeiro. I. Title.
HV.R P 
.'—dc 
Portions of this book appeared in a diff erent form in the following publications:
“Re-democratization in Brazil, A View From Below: T e Case of Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas, –,” in
Democratic Brazil Revisited, edited by Peter Kingstone and Timothy J. Power (Pittsburgh University Press, );
“Elusive Pathways Out of Poverty: Intra- and Intergenerational Mobility in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro,” in
Moving Out of Poverty: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives, edited by D. Narayan and P. Petesch (Washington, DC:
World Bank; and Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, ); “T e Myth of Marginality Revisited: T e Case
of Favelas in Rio de Janeiro, –,” in Becoming Global and the New Poverty of Cities, edited by Lisa Hanley,
Blair Ruble, and Joseph Tulchin (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, );
“Marginality: From Myth to Reality in the Favelas in Rio de Janeiro –,” in Urban Informality in an Era
of Liberalization: A Transnational Perspective, edited by Ananya Roy and Nezar AlSayyad (Lexington Books, );
“Chronic Poverty in Rio de Janeiro: What Has Changed in  Years,” in Managing Urban Futures: Sustainability
and Urban Growth in Developing Countries, edited by Marco Keiner, Martina Koll-Schretzenmayrm, and Willy
Schmid (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, ); “Globalization and the Urban Poor,” UNU-Wider Research
Paper No. /, November .
        
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For the billion people around the world who live in favelas and for
my mother and father who taught me to care and to persist.
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contents
Foreword by
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso ix
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xxv
Introduction 1
chapter  Deep Roots in Shallow Soil 24
chapter  T e World Goes to the City 41
chapter  Catacumba: T e Favela T at Was 62
chapter  Nova Brasília: From Favela to Complexo 93
chapter  Duque de Caxias: Favelas and Loteamentos 121
chapter  Marginality from Myth to Reality 147
chapter  Violence, Fear, and Loss 165
chapter  Disillusion with Democracy 200
chapter  T e Mystery of Mobility 220
chapter  Globalization and the Grassroots 246
chapter  Refl ections on Public Policy 264
chapter  T e Importance of Being Gente 316
appendix  Research Methods and Challenges 341
appendix  Analytical Framework for Assessing Success 355
Notes 361
References 385
Index 399
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f or eword
“Paradise is here, hell is here, madness is here, passion is here.” So the lyrics of
Francis Hime’s Sinfonía do Rio de Janeiro de São Sabastião, lyrics by Geraldo
Carneiro and Paulo Cesar Pinheiro, describe the city of Rio de Janeiro. But
Hime’s antipodes only begin a description of Rio’s squatter settlements—our
favelas.
In Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro, Janice Perl-
man shares with us her experiences, insights, and the results of her research into
the madness, passion, paradise, and hell experienced by Rio’s favela dwellers.
T is is a keenly insightful and eminently readable book that continues the
research Perlman chronicled in her acclaimed book, T e Myth of Marginality.
In Favela, we have a study of four generations over forty years. T e narrative
traces the lives and fortunes of hundreds of the favela residents met in T e Myth
of Marginality, comparing them with the lives of their parents (mostly rural),
their children, and their grandchildren.
Perlman’s study is both rich in detail and rewarding in its analyses. She
faithfully describes her subjects’ daily struggles and strategies to affi rm their
individual and collective rights and dignity from within an increasingly hostile
and violent environment. She uses the survey data she collected in over 
interviews and her ethnographic insights to test facile generalizations about the
wonders or horrors of favela life and to explore the improvements as well as the
setbacks. Her analysis and observations on social mobility and inequality are
particularly compelling as she looks at the issue from the individual and family
level and the community and city level simultaneously.
In doing this, Perlman has produced a portrait of a multifaceted society in
turmoil—a society in which life force and ingenuity coexist with desperation
and destruction.