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PHILOSOPHIES OF BRAZILIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE STAGNANT URBAN PROBLEMS IN FAVELAS
MARCOS GREGORIO
Marcos Gregorio is a junior at UNC Chapel Hill. He is on track to complete bachelor’s degrees in Environmental Science and Portuguese with a minor in Urban Planning. He is deeply interested in sustainable architecture, transportation, the sustainable intensification of the agricultural industry, and an equitable transition to renewable energy. Marcos is also the treasurer of UNC Club Judo and loves baking bread.
ABSTRACT
This article discusses the misappropriation of lusotropicalism and positivism in Brazilian politics, particularly their impact on favela urban policy. It highlights how lusotropicalism is distorted to assert a false depiction of racial harmony-- masking actual racial disparities, while a misconstrued positivism leads to ineffective governance. The study examines historical and contemporary policy failures, the problematic role of mayors, and the need for genuine community involvement in policymaking. It exposes the gap between the philosophical ideals and their practical application, revealing systemic issues in Brazilian politics and the urgent need for the implementation of more inclusive, community-driven approaches.
INTRODUCTION
Brazilian politics have transformed lusotropicalism and positivism into problematic philosophies of national identity, hindering policies’ effectiveness in solving the favelas’ problems. Politicians twist the meaning of lusotropicalism to assert racial harmony, even in the face of the issues spawned by racial inequality, and uphold a new definition of positivism, contradicting its original purpose. Former president Bolsonaro is quoted describing descendants of enslaved peoples as “good for nothing, not even to procreate” while using the slogan “My color is Brazil” to deflect from his divisive use of race in politics. Positivism, which prioritizes meritocracy and rationality, has become politically nonviable in addressing the issues of the favelas because it creates governmental power structures and non-participatory planning schemes that fail to address complex problems. Images of squalor, crime, and police violence contrast the cultural and communal epicenter that favelas genuinely are. The source of these problems is not the nature of those living in favelas, but rather the fundamental and perpetual problems in Brazilian politics, specifically how they have depicted the favelas.
BACKGROUND
The philosophies most influential in Brazilian politics are Lusotropicalism and Positivism. These ideologies have a long history in Brazil, dating from colonial times to modern Brazilian society. Lusotropicalism in Brazil, as conceptualized by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre, is an ideology that emerged from the unique colonial history of the country under Portuguese influence. The racial and cultural mixing that began during the Moorish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula and its proximity to Africa characterized Portuguese colonization as a level above other European colonial practices. Freyre claimed that the Portuguese were inherently more tolerant and adaptable, which led to a more humane form of colonialization marked by a higher degree of “miscegenation” and “cultural synthesis” (Bastos 2019). Brazilian culture does in fact exhibit racial harmony in many ways, notably in the celebration of Yemanjá, a deity from the Yoruba religion, introduced to the Americas by African slaves and revered as the Queen of the Ocean. The veneration of Yemanjá, along with other cultural events like Carnival, exemplifies something akin to contemporary Lusotropicalism. These celebrations, rooted in the cultural heritage of enslaved peoples, have been recontextualized as a unifying element of Brazilian identity.
Positivism is a philosophy created by Auguste Comte in the early 19th century; it claims that the only authentic knowledge is that which is derived from sense experience and positive verification. In other words, positivism relies heavily on empirical evidence and scientific methods, rejecting metaphysics and theology as valid sources of knowledge (Feigl, 2024). Brazil adopted this philosophy following its independence from Portuguese rule. It was inclined towards positivism as it provided an alternative to the papal and religious influence that the Portuguese government relied heavily on. This transition was marked by an emphasis on “order and progress,” brandished proudly on the Brazilian flag, reflecting a desire for stable, well-organized governance, rejecting metaphysical explanations, and a belief in the progressive improvement of society through science and reason. This approach was intended to represent a significant shift away from the traditional, top-down Portuguese approach to governance towards a more secular, rational, and scientific framework for organizing society (Rossen, 2005).
FAILURE TO LAUNCH
For decades, the Brazilian government has failed to create a policy that has truly changed the conditions in the favelas. The earliest policies attempted to “solve” what was described in 1937 through 1945 as breeding grounds for “disease, illiteracy, and crime, but also moral corruption and political radicalism.” The idea of “proletariat parks,” a small-scale favela removal project coined by Mayor Henrique Dodsworth, was the first of its kind and failed to reconcile the existence of racial harmony and uphold the true meaning of positivism (Green & Skidmore, 2021). It attempted to relocate and destroy these communities without acknowledging the history of disenfranchised enslaved people, which created the community in the first place, and instead followed a lazy and faulty string of logic that culminated in brute force policy and set the tone for policy in these communities for the near future. Again, in the 1960s and 70s, the federal government, the Housing Company of Guanabara, and the Coordination of Social Interest of the Greater Rio Metropolitan Area followed this same structure of brute force policy and failed. Fast forward to contemporary Brazil and the proposed seen similar because they have failed to make the connection between race and wealth disparities. According to Oxfam International, despite being one of the world’s largest economies, Brazil is still marked by “extreme inequality”. For example, Brazil’s six richest men have the same wealth as the poorest 50 percent of the population, which makes up around 100 million people. According to the projections by Oxfam, it would take decades for Brazilian women and Black Brazilians to achieve wage equality with their white counterparts. It is no surprise that these connections exist. However, they continue to exist because of lusotropicalism. It is a counterintuitive philosophy in a country with a long history of slavery. It became more perplexing when a country that prides itself in positivist philosophy, touting the importance of factual analysis and evidence, would choose to employ brute force policies that have been proven to be ineffective over almost 100 years.
Recently, the brute force policies of favela clearance have shifted towards pacification efforts in favelas, which have failed on many levels. Not only have they been unable to address the crime in these neighborhoods, which politicians argue are best solved through pacification practices, but they have been unable to uphold this mythological idea of Lusotropicalism and philosophy of positivism. Increased police presence has only worsened tensions between residents who, during the Olympics, expressed frustration with municipal governments trying to “clean up the streets” of Rio De Janeiro (Nolen, 2016). To this day, these neighborhoods are being controlled by the military using any means necessary, even violence (Richmond, 2019). Despite these attempts to reduce crime, the favelas remain much the same today, proving the ineffectiveness of pacification efforts, even when implemented at an intensity never seen before during the Olympics. Simple brute force policies like these continue to be used because they provide a short-term solution to an issue that the Brazilian government cannot solve until they are willing to acknowledge that significant racial inequality prevails and lusotropical ideas are not in fact not being upheld.
These policies are implemented city-by-city and overseen by mayors who control the municipal civil guards. Positivism, which rejects a large central government, encourages power being dispersed far from a central government and has created an effect like the idea of “mayorism”, present in many other Latin American countries. While mayorism looks different in a country like Brazil, compared to Chile for example (Bello, 2020), these mayors of major Brazilian cities are given almost exclusive power and responsibility over the Favelas and have little access to federal funding for these projects. A similar dynamic which Chilean and other Latin American mayors face. The lack of centralized power and minimal resources cause many of the projects and policies designed to improve the situation in the favelas to ultimately fail or dwindle, making pacification a tantalizing “solution”. It is easier to justify a budget of dwindling funds to be directed towards the police to “solve the crime” than it is to justify a complex urban planning and social safety net solution. Mayors also have direct control of “municipal civil guards” (Agência de Notícias IBGE, 2020), which makes solutions to these urban problems, such as community land trusts or economic revitalization plans, unattractive options to mayors who do not want to appropriate funds to projects that decentralize mayoral power. The point of Positivism, which sought to reject a strong central government, is actively being violated when solely funding the police and strengthening mayoral power structures, creating a pseudo-military rule that only feeds distrust between community and local government, a relationship that must be built on trust when solving issues on this scale.
Pacification as a remedy to crime fails repeatedly because the true root of crime in these neighborhoods is the massive wealth disparity and lack of economic opportunity. These issues are better solved by realizing the long history of disenfranchisement of the descendants of enslaved people and recognizing the failure of positivism as a core belief in Brazilian society when creating policy. When the problem of wealth disparity and race are so heavily intertwined, they must be accompanied by a racially conscious solution; however, with the current state of lusotropicalist political philosophy, the likelihood of a solution like this is, at best, unlikely, because Brazil views itself as tolerant and racially equitable.
What motives do politicians have to refuse to address the deep-seated connection between wealth disparity and race? First, it is because lusotropicalism creates a narrative in which the racially and economically disenfranchised people can be ignored. This makes politicians jobs much easier especially when faced with such a “wicked problem”. It is also essential to consider the ramifications of closing the wealth gap and what that would mean for the country’s elite who perpetuate this idea of racial “harmony”. Getting rid of the elite’s most expendable source of cheap labor, the descendants of enslaved peoples living in the favelas, would require the elite, including politicians, to willingly give up the economic gains they make by exploiting a workforce. These workers, often from poorer backgrounds and frequently belonging to racial minorities, enable middle and upper-class families to thrive.
If you time-traveled to Brazil today from the 19th century, the race relations would look very similar
– Bianca Santana
One of the most critical examples of this being how most domestic workers in Brazil are women who identify a black. More specifically, 61.6% of domestic workers are black and 38.4% are white. These disparities become more evident when looking at the options given to black women for employment are clearly skewed: 12% of white women with a job are domestic workers and the rates increase to 21% for black women (Bernardino-Costa, 2014). Often tasked with being on-call 24/7, living far away from their employers, and carrying the emotional burden of taking care of their employer’s children, these women do not receive a fair wage either for the difficulty of their work. This motif of racial injustice and history of slavery extends to the rest of Brazil’s job market when you consider the fact that there was never an effort to incorporate black people into the formal economy after the abolishment of slavery (Bennett, 2020). As a result, the way Brazilian society values black people’s role in the economy has seen little to no change and they continue to fill jobs that could only be described as unjust. This dynamic highlights the critical role of those living in favelas play in supporting the lifestyle of the wealthy. Politicians have held onto the notion of racial harmony, despite the country’s stark racial disparities, because it enables them and their constituents to reap benefits far too great to concede. Addressing this issue requires a multi-faceted approach focusing on economic reforms, re-evaluating the roles of lusotropicalism in Brazilian society, and acknowledging its implications in masking and perpetuating racial and economic disparities.
In recent years, some politicians have attempted to create policies focused on improving the urban and economic conditions in the favelas. The Favela Barrio Project, assessed ten years after its implementation by the Inter-American Development Bank, had promising results in revitalizing these communities, a step towards closing the wealth gap. Despite its attempts to improve housing and inject economic revitalization, it ultimately fell short due to funding issues (Libertun & Osorio, 2020). The lack of funding, however, comes from a fundamental lack of responsibility the Brazilian government has taken to improve these people’s lives. The government should enhance the situation of the directly disenfranchised people. Yet, these programs are treated as side-bar projects and receive no funding because they would require acknowledging the true history which penetrates the pretense of lusotropicalism. Returning to this idea of “mayorism”, positivism is used to reinforce the relationship between the federal and local government and creates a funding death spiral for many of these policies. Mayors simply do not have access to the funding they need for these local projects to work in the long term. Thus, calling for a change in the organization of governmental powers requires first reconsidering how positivism is viewed in Brazilian politics as a mode of pushing for a more secular government. Positivism’s strong emphasis on scientific knowledge and expert opinions often leads to urban planning approaches that rely heavily on planners’ insights and marginalize the voices of local community members in the process. As a result, the current approach has been minimal or purely tokenistic. The Favela Barrio Project lacked public hearings and had no community-suggested plan amendments. They prioritize technical solutions and expert-driven designs, assuming that planners’ scientific and factual knowledge leads to more optimal outcomes than those of community-based approaches.
Rio De Janeiro’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, has begun a master planning project for the city. An improvement during the creation of this policy in 2019 notably featured 26 public hearings in direct response to the criticisms of previous policy efforts lacking community input (Favela-CLT Project, 2023). It promised to be a comprehensive planning policy that used community input rather than reliance on the expertise of the urban planner. Community Land Trusts (CLTs), a form of collective land ownership where a non-profit organization holds the land, was at the forefront of what community members wanted for their communities. They rallied at these hearings and expressed how this policy would help their communities thrive. Finally, after the hearing process and almost 200-plus amendments to the master plan, the CLT policy pushed by residents was not considered at all. It seems the public participation that the master plan was being championed for was to appease the public during the master plan creation and ultimately excluded them in the end. It is abundantly clear that there is a positivist attitude in rejecting community members’ requests, the people who best understand the issues and requests of their community, for the opinions of a professional planner who has likely not stepped foot in a favela once. If proper public participation had been used, community members would have utilized these policies and may have flourished. This disconnect highlights the need for more inclusive, participatory approaches that value local knowledge and perspectives, ensuring that urban development projects meet the needs of those they are designed to help (Arnstein, 1969). However, this would require an altered perspective on the positivist philosophy that has remained relatively unchanged, as have the problems of infrastructure and economic development in favelas.
The popular belief amongst politicians and Brazilians alike is that the Favelas have unfixable problems. This attitude denies millions of people a future where they can live safely and build wealth. Instead of fostering genuine racial harmony by reconciling a long history of racial injustice and upholding scientific and progressive governance, Lusotropicalism and Positivism have been twisted to maintain the status quo, leaving the needs and voices of favela residents unaddressed. It has become apparent that changing or abandoning these philosophies is necessary to change a stagnant nation. Their meanings changed hundreds of years ago through independence from a paternalistic state, and I foresee they will change again.
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