When a Favela Dared to Become a Gated Condominium

Abstract

An analysis of the key political events that led to the installation of gates and cameras around Jacarezinho, the second-largest favela in Rio de Janeiro, in July 2001 and the reaction to them by the news media is here framed by ethnographic data gathered since June 2001 among Afro-Brazilian activists in Rio de Janeiro. Study of the newspaper coverage of the creation of the “favela-condominium” and the public debate that followed shows that such discourses, albeit often tacitly, dehumanized Afro-Brazilians by linking them to crime and corruption and depicted the favelas as likely to produce future generations of dangerous blacks who would continue to terrorize the imagination and lives of nonfavela people. Attention to the way race and urban space intersect is necessary if scholarship on Brazilian cities intends to understand and dialogue with favela activists, who have no choice but to confront their continued dehumanization.