Socio-spatial legibility, discipline, and gentrification through favela upgrading in Rio de Janeiro
Comelli, Thaisa (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism)
Anguelovski, Isabelle (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Chu, Eric (University of Birmingham. School of Geography, Earth and Environment Sciences)

Date:	2018
Abstract:	This paper contributes to global perspectives on gentrification by interrogating the experiences of urban redevelopment and transformation in the global South. Through unpacking the contradictions of public space revitalization and upgrading in two favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we critically examine changes to the socio-spatial fabric of informal settlements over time. Our analysis reveals that upgrading projects, when combined with stateled favela pacification, create socio-spatial legibility through three inter-related pathways ofphysical, symbolic, and economic discipline. In the outset, favela upgrading increases property prices and produces an urban scenario molded for outsiders while simultaneously invisibilizing traditional cultural and social uses. For favela residents, however, upgrading is experienced as iterative processes of securitization and restriction, which involve strategies such as environmental clean-up, property enclosure, police violence, and new exclusionary forms of investments. As a result, the most socially vulnerable residents are controlled, coercively driven away, and slowly erased. Over time, the apparent integration of the formal and informal city, of the rich and the poor, of the 'asphalt' and the 'hill' in Rio de Janeiro produces new forms of separation, segregation, and fragmentation.
Grants:	Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MDM-2015-0552 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad RYC-2014-15870 European Commission 678034
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552
Note:	Digital object identifier for the 'European Research Council' (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000781), Digital object identifier for 'Horizon 2020' (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100007601).
Rights:	Tots els drets reservats.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Subject:	Slum upgrading ; Neoliberal cities ; Public space ; Global gentrification ; Environmental gentrification ; Rio ; Brazil
Published in:	City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, Vol. 22, núm. 5-6, p. 633-656 (29 November 2018) , ISSN 1360-4813

DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2018.1549205

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) > The Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles