Suchergebnisse

The Police "Pacification" Unit (Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora—UPP) program in Rio de Janeiro pledged to pacify both militarized police officers and the communities they patrolled: favelas occupied by armed drug traffickers. While the UPPs promoted a softer approach, police practices remained permeated with logics of violence. In understanding why, this article examines how an enduring "warrior ethos" influences the occupational culture of the police. I frame this warrior ethos by reference to notions of masculinity and honor both in the police culture and in the favela, and approach the warrior as a masculine performance. This masculinities perspective on the ways in which policing activities are framed and enacted provides important insights into why it was so difficult to change police attitudes and practices.

AbstractBetween 2010 and 2016, over 65,000 slum dwellers were forcibly evicted in Rio de Janeiro. This article compares three cases of anti‐eviction resistance over this period. While the three case study communities were all relatively successful in contesting evictions, the outcomes (material, social, political‐symbolic) of their mobilizations were different. To understand how and why, we examine and compare the structures and processes of mobilization in these three communities and show how they found different openings and limitations in the changing political opportunity structure. We distinguish three distinct 'moments' or opportunity structures in Rio de Janeiro's urban governance between 2010 and 2016. We term these the City of Exception, the City in Revolt and the City in Crisis. The analytical and theoretical framework of contentious politics helps us draw together and expand on two dominant narratives in scholars' approach to slum evictions: on the one hand a top‐down perspective of the 'city against slum dwellers'; on the other a bottom‐up perspective of 'slum dwellers against the city'. In this article we test the usefulness of our expanded framework—contentious politics of slums—for understanding the organization and outcomes of community resistance against evictions, and discuss its relevance for research on the politics of slums in the global South.

Within the BRICS countries, 'cities of exception' build coalitions of government and business in search of entrepreneurship opportunities. Sports combine image and accumulation, as well as the excuse to carry out pacification and removals of the population. In Rio, the World Cup and Olympic Games have generated a sort of an urban revolution, indicative of a social sense that even the poorest people have a 'Right to the City' and that class coalitions can improve society's chances against mega-events planners. ; publishedVersion