Morro, Asfalto, Mar

MorroAsfaltoMar

ROSS DEVLIN CAI JOHN PAOLA TENCONI

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Morro Asfalto Mar This book is dedicated to Maria Wood

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Contents

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1. Introduction 1.1 Mission Statement 07

1.2 Mapping Displacement in the Olympic City 08 1.3 Favela History 10 2. Institutional Structures 2.1 Life Imitates Sport 14

[ Copacabana ] 23 2.2 Power and Space 24 2.3 Angelica 32

3. Human Structures 3.1 Lambe Lambe 42 3.2 Fabio 48 3.3 Gabriela e Bianca 52

4. Forms of Resistance [street art] 58

4.1 Disorder and Progress 64

[Arvore Seca] 70 5. Conclusion

5.2 Bibliography 72

5.3 Credits & Acknowledgements 74

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pic intro

Introduction

[7] Rio de Janeiro is a city unlike any other: an impossible urban sprawl among hills of unparalleled beauty. Our goal was not to become caught up in Olympic fever—it was to measure the contribution that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic institution made to Brazil’s Cidade Maravilhosa, and to report on this as objectively as possible. Our Olympic narrative, like that of the participating athletes and spectators, was a unique, spectacular experience. We learned of many stories in the Marvelous City, and met people along the way who inspired us with their dedication and optimism.

The name Morro, Asfalto, Mar alludes to a commonly known division that exists in Rio. The morro is the “hill.” This is where the favelas are. They are not shanty towns, or slums, but communities constructed by the residents themselves, without any assistance from the municipal government. In some instances this means that drug traffickers become the central authority of the community. Armed teenagers are the law enforcement. The city’s solution to this power vacuum is to impose police “pacification” units, which have been engaging in violent clashes with the two main trafficking gangs, Commando Vermelho and Amigos do Amigos, since 2008.

With assistance from some of our interviewees and our translator Annabel Britton, we visited the Arvore Seca, Caixa d’Agua, and Alemão favelas in the North Zone, some of which were still under trafficker law after six years of pacification.

The asfalto is the asphalt: the glitz and glamor of Copacabana, and the South and West zones, which were the main arena for the action-packed Olympic venues. It is expansive and metropolitan, boasting the 4th largest Latin American economy, HDI comparable to Helsinki, and some of the highest salaries in Brazil. By including o mar, the sea, we complete a picture of Rio’s dynamic landscape, and also reference the three different mediums upon which the athletes competed: land, hill, water. We strove to represent each element equally, and capture the vibrancy of the cariocan spirit—both high in the hills and upon the busy streets—against the backdrop of some of the world’s most famous beaches.

We had three guiding principles throughout the project. First, to be rigorous and thorough in our interpretation of the events preceding, during, and following the Olympics. Much knowledge about what the IOC and the Brazilian government does is speculative—spin, deception, and exaggeration proliferated. Second, to avoid the sensationalization that traditional media sources employ in order to shock and enthrall their viewers. The narratives surrounding Rio 2016 are deadly serious, and should represent their subjects honestly. Our final principle was to avoid stigmatizing the favelas, for they are the most vulnerable communities in Rio de Janeiro, and are often not given a voice in their own affairs, even at the polling station.

This project would have been impossible without the generosity of the Wood family, and we would like to thank Maria, Roger, and Mary Wood for their hospitality. This project was financed by the Principal’s Go Abroad Fund and the Innovative Initiative Grant, awarded to us by the University of Edinburgh. We hope this project reflects the rigorous academic standards impressed upon us at Edinburgh University, and provides a source of inspiration for ambitious students seeking to question the facts under every façade.

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Mapping Displacement in The Olympic City

Number of families removed

Bairro names RCO: AUT: ARR: CAM: MAD: PEN: MAN: PRO: SAM:

Justification for removal

- Implementation of Cable Cars; - deemed an ‘unstable area’

- Luxury condominiums; - BRT Transcarioca overpass; - ‘environmental preservation’

- Broadening of the Sambadrome

- BRT Transcarioca

- BRT Transoeste

- Olympic Park construction; - BRT Transolímpica; - ‘environmental preservation’

- Parking lot for the Maracaña stadium

Transport lines

- BRT Transoeste

- BRT Transolímpica

- BRT Transcarioca

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Recreio Vila Autódromo Arroio Pavuna Largo do Campinho Madureira Penha Circular Metrô Mangueira Morro da Providência Favela do Sambódromo

Preparations vasive human was endemic construction

for the Rio 2016 Olympics saw perrights abuses. Forced displacement throughout World Cup and Olympic and development.

Data from the “World Cup and Olympics Popular Committee of Rio de Janeiro” suggests 22,059 families were removed between 2009-2015, but estimates are conservative due to lack of government transparency on removals and difficulties accessing data. Often, houses were marked for removal justified under the ‘risky area’ or ‘environmental preservation’ pretext, with little evidence.

This map is not exhaustive: data on displacement can be difficult to access, and favelas, because of their nature as informal housing regions, may lack precise geographical coordinates. Superimposing the main Olympic zones­ --Barra, Deodoro, Maracaña, and Copacabana--over clusters of the city where displacement was concentrated makes clear that displacements recorded over this period correspond geographically to Olympic-related development.

The map also indicates the three BRT (bus rapid transport) lines cutting through a number of neighbourhoods. These were developed ahead of the Olympic games, resulting in hundreds of displacements throughout the city.

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Morro Complexo [ Complex Hill ] A Brief History of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro It is impossible to understand Rio de Janeiro without considering the city’s relationship to its favelas—those world-famous hillside neighborhoods that are visible from everywhere in the city, pockmarking the night sky with strings of golden orbs, filling up all the extra available real estate that is not already part of the asfalto, the asphalt. § The Brazilian Real (R$) is the currency of Brazil.

It currently trades at 4.21 to the £.

An “informal” economy is econ-talk for anything that flies under the government’s radar. Generally referring to the trading of illicit goods and services, in a place like Rocinha it can also refer to the unregulated trading of things as commonplace as food, electricity, or television. † the majority of this fraction store it in large, blue 1000L tanks on their roofs, and receive delivery by truck, visible in the picture on this page.

Up to R$ 100 million is generated annually in Rocinha,1 the largest favela in the Americas, and Rio’s favelas overall boast a multibillion real informal economy.2§ The favelas were once shantytowns established by freed slaves and disgruntled soldiers and mercenaries, and the recipients of Brazilian migrants from the Northern states during industrialisation.3 This definition no longer feels appropriate though. 99% of favelas have access to electricity from the grid, 99% have access to state water,† and 90% have access to wi-fi.4 The favela story begins with the abolition of slavery and Brazil’s transition to an independent republic in the 1880s. Land was allocated in a variety of ways. Some favelas were farming communities, wherein the land was eventually subdivided over time. Some were squatter settlements. Some were “legally parceled residential areas”; in the case of Complexo Alemão, the World War II soldier who owned the entire hill (and was actually Polish) sold it off piece by piece.5 In the 1950s, with the assistance of Rio de Janeiro’s official church, the favelas set up neighborhood associations called Associação de moradores to facilitate local involvement with politics. Although at first relations between the city proper and the morro were amicable, communities soon realized certain favelas were slated for demolition, and thus began decades of antagonism between the fiercely prideful favelas and the powerful state. The government’s solution, at first, was to deny the favelas public services like police, sanitation, and electricity. Electricity is easy to steal; things became hairier in the 1980s, when Brazil became an export hub for refined cocaine on its way to the United States. Internal demand was inevitably created, fueling a “war on drugs” that fell hardest on the urban poor. Traffickers soon separated into factions and established territory.6

[12] By the mid-1990s, Brazil becomes one of the most violent nations not at war. From this point on, the favela’s history is inseparable from that of the traffickers and their charismatic leaders, who live in luxury on the highest points of the morro. In the early 2000s, Rio’s mayor decided that the city deserved the status of an international business hub, and he set about a multifaceted plan to this end. His agenda intended to overcome the violence and offer a more marketable picture of the city. One essential aspect of this plan was international attention, to be achieved through the World Cup and the Olympics. The city bid for both sporting mega events multiple times, and finally won in 2009. Another important node was the Police Pacification Program (UPP), conceived in 2006 and implemented in 2008 by the State Public Security Secretary José Mariano Beltrame. The UPP is an aggressive counterstrike against trafficking gangs, wherein favelas are invaded and quite literally occupied by Rio’s most elite police force. Over time, the elite forces and military are replaced by UPP officers, who attempt to establish amicable relations within the community.7 So far the program has been implemented in 42 of over 150 favelas, and has been moderately successful—murder rates in all UPP favelas have declined by 80%, and unsolved crimes have also declined.8 However, the extent to which favelas are “pacified” is arguably superficial.

Visiting Alemão, we saw the UPP coexisting with the Commando Vermelho gang, separated by a 100m stretch of road neither party crosses. It seemed like an amicable relationship, but we were told by the traffickers not to hang out in the street, just in case.

The UPP is not necessarily welcome either. In many reported caes, they’ve imposed an antagonistic military presence on an otherwise peaceful people. There have been 8,466 reported civilian deaths between 2004-2015.

4/5 victims are poor, black, and aged 15-29. This demographic is consistent with that of the average drug trafficker, suggesting profiling is common. Police are also encouraged to underreport police killings, or to fabricate evidence.9 Although almost all favelas now have access to basic civil amenities, there is still a fundamental dissonance between the life of a favelado and an average Rio citizen. Stigma, marginalization, and prejudice are critical to the morro/asfalto division. The average favela is 60% colored. Using Brazil’s “color” system, it is close to even thirds preto (black), pardo (mixed race), and branco (white).10 The favelas face an uphill struggle against inequality, exacerbated by austerity measures proposed by Rousseff usurper Michel Temer, who has moved to curtail workers’ rights and cut pay to police officers and teachers in order to finance the Olympic ticket.

The government in Rio has largely dodged responsibility for endemic forced displacement. Public works contracts for the games totaling over R$ 8b have almost exclusively been handed to private construction organizations. They can “skirt normative democratic process under the banner of the Olympic Legacy.”11 It is worth stressing that currently, several of these companies are under investigation for illegal anti-competitive practices during the Rousseff government. The embezzlement and cronyism that took place has not been abated by Rousseff ’s impeachment, as two of these companies—Petrobas and Odebrecht—are still embroiled in legal hell.

Michel Temer was also under investigation for illegal campaign funding, in collusion with these two companies, but has recently been cleared. For this reason favelas are a focal point of our research—as a neglected, disadvantaged part of Rio’s ecosystem, they stand to lose the most from the “Olympic effect”.

Ary Barroso Park 19 August, 2017.

Moments before this photo was taken, the sky was clear and we were learning about the degradation of the park after it was co-opted by the police as a base, due to its strategic location between Penha Circular and the Caixa d’Agua and Sereno favelas.

See page 66 for more on the fate of the park.

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LIFE IMITATES SPORT

The Eternal Olympic Brand

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The image the Olympics would like to put forth is of competition in its purest form, with adjustments made to accommodate the size of modern audiences.

Aside from the billions in permanent infrastructure investment, million-strong attendances, and extensive network of contracts with sponsors and consumer partners, the Olympics wants to be seen as a goodole-fashioned track meet. Talent and ability, an unadulterated exhibition of the limits of human physicality – nothing less.

Pure, honest sport is the ethos of the Olympics. Every brand has an ethos. The most successful brands aim to create an emotional bond with the consumer, and encourage complete immersion into the lifestyle promoted by said brand.

The Brand is Omnipresent Brand ideologies should be sufficiently vague as to dissuade the least amount of people. It doesn’t matter that products themselves aren’t necessarily concurrent with the values they embody. Probity has never been mandated by consumers or governments, who throughout history have been partially complicit with and partially ignorant of the duplicity exhibited by some corporations. Coca-Cola, after all, is a person§ in search of profit. They shirk the logical incongruence of using their soft drink—in the hands of an athlete whose real-life diet has little room for the calorific void that is soda—to advertise a way of life that paradoxically supports both the athlete’s drive for excellence, and the average stadium-goer’s fleeting desire to mainline sugar and caffeine.

This is the essential duality of a consumer brand like Coke: they intend to capture your short-term yearning for a sweet fix, whenever the moment may strike, whilst also encouraging decorous long-term habits, like waking up early to go swimming, or crowd surfing at a sick concert, dude!, or grabbing the nearest two strangers and going off on a zany road trip.

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For better or worse, the brand has become the primary object of consumption for both producers and consumers. Arousing emotional familiarity has allowed brands a dominating physical presence in our lives, literally occupying much of our picture of reality in logos and advertisements, and also covertly adapting our habits to suit brand allegiance. But they have also opened better communication channels between producer and consumer, where we are able to hold producers accountable for our health and wellbeing. This has arguably made some corporates more benign and egalitarian.

The duality of the Olympic brand is similar. In the short term, there are deadlines to meet, and many political hurdles that can potentially be circumnavigated in the interest of meeting these deadlines. In the long term, there is always the next Olympics. The desires of the IOC do not extend far beyond this line of thinking. They do not need to – the IOC is the sole gatekeeper of the Olympics, and their only responsibility is to maintain “the fundamental principles of Olympism,” which are education, respect, human dignity, mutual understanding, solidarity, and fair play, according to the 2024 Olympic bid guide. They lease the Olympic brand, along with all proprietary symbols and trademarks, to a city deemed worthy by some esoteric selection process. The city is then expected to ameliorate the brand with their own, unique value set. The city must stage an Olympics, and do a damn good job of it, and then pay the IOC for renting their imagery and “principles of OIympism.” What the city gets in return is “a chance to write its own chapter in history,”1 and an entrepreneurial aura that makes said city the center of attention for the entire summer. This return on investment is touted by the IOC as the “Legacy Effect.”2

The Brand is Human Brands often adopt familiar historical tropes in order to evoke universal associations between the product and the myth. What better model for the modern Olympics than the original games, held in Olympia, Greece, from the 8th Century BC? This distinguished the competition from any other international track meet – it’s tradition!

Ancient Greek culture dominates images of classical antiquity, ditto the principles of the Greek philosophers.

Even today Western Scholars revere classic literature as the product of a uniquely enlightened time. Ignoring the prejudiced exclusion of women, minorities, and certain political and ethnic groups from early Olympics, this was the original aim: the resumption of an universal, benevolent sport traditional, after a 1100-year hiatus.

Early Olympics had a utopian feel to them. Over time, the fixation on cultural exchange gave way to nation branding in the 1980s. There are multiple reasons for this. The rise of Communism forced nations to choose sides. International tensions were at an all-time high, with the Cold War and Pink Tide facilitating divisions between the East and West. Economically, the power of capitalism was being fully realized in the United States.

Atom bombs were not the only things dropping—a widespread explosion in branding and corporate identity engulfed anyone in earshot with the sound of orgasmic cash registers. The 1984 Los Angeles games epitomized the era’s sun-soaked, vibrant optimism. It was the most financially responsible Olympics ever—a gold medal on two accounts: infrastructure was managed with conservative zeal that could rival a private equity firm, and the visual cohesion of the Games set a precedent for all future Olympics. The unprecedented amount of TV coverage would mean that America’s version of television—flashy, ad-heavy, and considerate of the 8pm EST “prime time” slot—would become an Olympic standard.

As broadcasting capacity increased, so did the ways in which the public could follow certain Olympic narratives.

“They shirk the logical incongruence of using their soft drink...to advertise a way of life that paradoxically supports both the athlete’s drive for excellence, and the average stadiumgoer’s fleeting desire to mainline sugar and caffeine.”

§ In the US, “corporate personhood” is a hotly debated topic.

Some corporations receive the same protections that people do under the Fourteenth Amendment, allowing the to sue and be sued, and provides a single entity for taxation.

The venue for Olympic boxing was in the Riocentro convention center, in the West Zone (photo at right). From Leme, it took 90 minutes to reach by subway and shuttle bus (we also hitched a ride with coaches for the Georgian wrestling team in one of the Rio 2016 Nissans, after wandering around the Olympic park for too long).

Without the new subway lines constructed for the games, the trip would have been longer and more expensive.

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Sports have always suited drama and biography well. The empty air time was soon filled with the legacies of coaches, teams, and famous moments from throughout Olympic history. Soon, individual athletes began to dominate, filling different character types. There are giants, like Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, who ascend to hero status as they break existing records and invent new ones. There are rogues with unusual habits, politically charged anti-heroes, rivalries, burnouts, and all other colors and flavors of humanity. Rags-to-Riches stories are most popular.

The more we know about the Olympians aside from their split time, the more we pay attention to them for the potential of witnessing an “Olympic Moment.” Thus forth spills the gossip – eating habits, sex lives, personal and ancestral history, parents’ wealth, opinions on “the competition” and politics, team relationships, and, in a twist that perfectly encapsulates social media’s socialization of everything, their post-performance party schedule. Athletes were smart to turn their Snapchat account into a personal broadcasting platform, giving their fans a subjective take that broke the festival’s fourth wall, often resulting in hilarious viral content. During the day, plumbing problems turned the stairwells into waterfalls. During the night, onstage rivalries dissolved as athletes necked shots with tourists, officials, and locals alike. * Skateboarding in particular has been hostile to corporatization, or “sportification” as Sidewalk Magazine put it. Skateboarding also has very few athletic objectives, aside from looking stylish, going fast, and being a daredevil, which made Japan’s announcement a bit of a headscratcher.

The Brand is Olympic Aside from the sports themselves, the Olympics has matured into a late-capitalist fever dream. Nowadays, interacting with the Olympics is quite like being in an amusement park. Everything within the boundaries of the park has been sculpted to facilitate enjoyment. Photo stations are placed throughout the South Zone for visitors to check into and take selfies. Clever entrepreneurs have set up phone-charging and wi-fi stands. Also, visitors are generally discouraged from leaving the boundaries of the park. Venturing into Rio’s north and west zones, which are less under the control of the municipal government, is discouraged. We reference “control” somewhat facetiously, as it is only certain favelas that are completely under trafficker rule. It is clear, though, that investment in the Olympics was focused on the beachs and the south.

With all the distractions, it is often necessary to be reminded that sport is the reason the Olympics exists. There are now so many other things that one can pay attention to. This is entirely natural in the brand life cycle. As it grows and requires higher levels of sustenance, the brand expands to accommodate new markets. It adds sports it thinks will attract viewers—skateboarding, for example, will debut at Tokyo 2020, irrespective of Japan’s limited relationship to skateboarding, or how much sense an Olympic form of skateboarding might make.

Rio 2016, in keeping with trends in capitalism, strived for maximum Snapchatability. This is perhaps the first Olympics where the transaction of “experience” appeared as important to the transaction of tickets and popcorn sales. The experience economy is still in its infancy—it caters to an elite audience that is willing to go anywhere and do anything in order to have a unique “experience” that everyone else can covet. That last axiom is a little cynical, because in a global supply chain where fashions, tastes, and commodities can be imitated and acquired by anybody, the only thing left to distinguish those who have it all from those who want it all is experience.

They commissioned world-renowned graffiti artists to trade paint with some of Brazil’s most famous, including Kobra’s completion of the world’s largest single-person mural, a fact reiterated to us daily. They built a “Museum

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of Tomorrow,” the interior of which was just as vague and superficially futuristic as it sounds. The Olympic “hospitality houses” were used more to this end than anything else—each country had a building or pop-up they decorated with symbols of home, meant to give athletes a place to retreat, socialize, and watch sports in a lavish environment. Of course, the original purpose of the hospitality house has since given way to a far more profitable and entertaining notion—pitting the houses against each other—a competition within a competition that allows nations to show off their relative merits to the club-savvy young jet setters, who are ultimately only at the Games to party.

Comparing the houses (and trying to get into them) quickly became another collectible commodity, along with decorative pint cups, pins, shot glasses, flags, bikinis, official posters (collect all 12!), stuffed animals, baseball caps, coffee mugs, and bottles of commemorative wine (collect all varieties!). It was like a scavenger hunt for people whose idea of fun is an international bar crawl—those who need little convincing to remain within the elaborately contrived safety of the Zona Sul. It helped that each house played heavily to national stereotypes.

The American house was in an enormous, garishly Trumpian hotel overlooking Copacabana. The South Korean house was exceedingly cute, and introduced the world to a hologram of the 2020 winter Olympic mascot. The Dubai house was in a gated mansion adorned with gold Arabic calligraphy. The Jamaica house hosted Usain Bolt’s birthday, and invitations were highly coveted. The German house was a lively beach-side spot in Leblon; naturally, beer and bratwurst were served.

The Olympic brand is “eternal” not in the sense that it has endured the test of time—many of the Games’ official partners have been around for longer—but that it relies on the feeling of the nostalgic, intellectual purity of Classical Greece. The Olympics channels this energy as a sort of façade, something we explored firsthand on the Olympic Boulevard,* to graft an idealistic image onto a fully industrial, capitalist institution. The IOC has made decisions in the past. They associated with Hitler’s Germany in 1931, ousting member Ernest Jahncke when he encouraged the US to boycott.3 They worked to fiercely protect their proprietary over worldwide sports, blocking other blocs of countries from forming their own organizations, like the International Workers Olympiad, and the Games of The New Emerging Forces.

Like most brands, the IOC tries to keep political controversies out of the games, but has become embroiled in scandals with China, Taiwan, the United States, Israel, and Palestine over issues of statehood. Like some corporate entities, it has done much charitable good in the world, promoting equality in athletics for women, equal representation for the disabled, assistance to local and regional organizations, and a healthy competitive and social atmosphere of great diversity. Our interactions with the 2016 edition of the Olympic brand proves it has evolved over time to engage with the changing tastes of its customers. It also demonstrates how, like other institutions that exert externalities of their host populations, greater attention must be paid to the actions of the IOC and the Olympic Organizing Committee. * See “Lambe Lambe” on page 42 for more discussion on the “Olympic façade” and its boundaries.

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Copacabana

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Brazil has a long history of embedding sports intonational discourses for private and state interests— from the early twentieth century, Brazilian national identity was forged, and increasingly exploited, over sport. The emergence of sport as a linchpin of national identity helps explain its prevalence in legitimising urban development. Christopher Gaffney§ points to 1919 as the starting point of this trajectory, when Brazil hosted and won the 1919 Copa América. Almost a century later, sporting identity was so ubiquitous in Brazil that by 2007, ahead of hosting the Pan American games, Rio de Janeiro city was plastered with signs reading “In Rio, Sport Is the Future.”1 Sports assumed an almost redemptive quality against this backdrop, encouraging the false hope that athletic success can salvage Brazil from its profound social grievances. Citing both the endurance of sports as the bedrock of national identity and its instrumentalisation in state discourses, Rio de Janeiro’s bid for the 2016 Olympics designated “social transformation through sports” as a key strategy for the games.

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POWER & SPACE Discourse & Exclusion in the Olympic City

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[27] Mythical Discourses § Christopher Gaffney is Senior Research fellow at the University of Zurich’s Geography Department, and editor of the Journal of Latin American Geography. † Juliana Barbassa is the Brazil correspondent for Associated Press since 2010, and author of “Dancing with the Devil in the City of God.” Interviewed for this piece by author. $ To see a visual tracking of some of these instances of displacement, see the map on page 9.

The discourses around Rio 2016, brimming with national identity rhetoric, posited support for mega sporting events (MSEs) as a national duty by capitalising on narratives of “urban boosterism.”2 The elusive Olympic ‘legacy’ was a trope invoked to endorse deep social and infrastructural transformations required ahead of the games, a rhetorical tool appealing to the patriotism of cariocas. The prospect of development—expedited by deadlines imposed at the discretion of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)—underpinned justifications for Olympic preparations. Despite the surfeit of studies dismissive of Olympic and MSE potential to bring about growth and development, Rio’s Olympic bid teemed with promises of sustainable long-term development.

“Transformation of the city” and “social inclusion” topped the list of Rio’s projected legacy in the bid dossier.

Critics were quick to highlight the irony of these promises as lower-income areas were razed to make room for Olympic infrastructure – Juliana Barbassa† described the progressive rhetoric undergirding the Olympic bid and subsequent development as “perverse.”3 Those opposed to the bid were particularly suspicious of the sense of urgency that accompanied Olympic development, recognising that the short-term interests of parties involved in Olympic planning—catalysed by the “pressure of an impending deadline”—were largely incompatible with the city’s long-term development needs.4

Development, Destruction, Displacement The Cable-car in Complexo do Alemão [left] is a key example of state expenditure that has caused controversy, with some calling the efforts misguided, while conveniently facilitating state surveillance and control. Many residents felt this project did little to facilitate their commute in and out of the favela, and to boot, residents are now subjected to the eerie sensation of being watched—be it by the police or poverty-porn seeking tourists, leering at the favelas from above, big-brother style. ∆ ‘Comitê Popular da Copa e das Olimpíadas do Rio de Janeiro’ (World Cup and Olympics Popular Committee of Rio de Janeiro), comprised of activists, academics, organisations, syndicates and NGOs aiming to mobilise a movement against rights violations associated with the World Cup and Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and monitoring these events.

Reality hit once construction plans blueprinted widespread displacement throughout the city. Displacement and marginalisation of lower-income areas are chronic in Rio de Janeiro, symptomatic of age-old strategies for dealing with the poor—patterns of social exclusion and removal were only expedited in the rush to Rio 2016.5 Clashing with promises of social inclusion, the lead-up to the Olympics saw the widespread co-optation of humanitarian narratives while forced removals, gentrification and social cleansing policies spread. Displacement laid the groundwork for developing Olympic infrastructure, but it also functioned as an instrument of social cleansing. Lower-income areas considered unsafe and unattractive could be bulldozed for the sole purpose of tidying up Rio’s image, encouraging tourism and boosting foreign interest in the city.

Official data on displacement is conservative at best due to frequent violations of the right to information access and lack of government transparency, but a report created by the Comitê Popular∆ estimates that following Rio’s third and final Olympic bid, between 2009 and 2013, around 67,000 people were displaced.6 Displacement assumed different forms under various guises throughout the Olympic preparation process. In the most extreme cases, entire communities were violently wiped out, like in the Favela Do Metrô/Metrô Mangueira in Rio’s North Zone,$ where residents were forcefully evicted to make way for the construction of a parking lot near the Maracaña stadium.7 In other instances, residents were strategically relocated and received compensation for their displacement, but for the most part, families were relocated to city outskirts, miles away from their communities and placed inconveniently far away from transport or their work-places.8 Loss of homes aside, in a lot of these lower-income areas, informal networks are invaluable for emotional and financial support. Economic displacement was also endemic during the Olympic preparation phase, and is a process that will have an enduring legacy in Rio de Janeiro, as rent inflation and soaring real estate prices will continue to drive out communities that survived the more invasive removal operations.9

[28] Displacement and removal procedures breached several national and international laws, despite repeated justifications ranging from clearing the way for Olympic transport and venue infrastructure to the more ambiguous “risky area” pretext. Data from the Comitê Popular suggests that in cases of “risky area” removal justification, alleged environmental risks were seldom substantiated.10 In some cases, these patterns of displacement also violated rights to adequate housing prescribed by international law—rights agreed upon by the Brazilian state.11

Reinterpreting Olympic space Gaffney proposes reading Olympic Rio de Janeiro as “a city within a city, as a highly specific ‘Olympic Geography’ with its own laws, norms, codes, boundaries, and disciplines.”12 Theories of Olympic exceptionalism help explain how the government, IOC and private contractors managed to circumvent legal procedures during Olympic infrastructural development. While time pressure to prepare the Olympic city facilitated these transgressions, some critics maintain that these exceptional loopholes, granting greater power to government and private authorities, were calculated: Barbassa, for one, thinks there was an opportunistic development strategy in bringing mega-events to Rio de Janeiro all along.13 Olympic rhetoric enabled exceptional state intervention, exacerbating existing patterns of inequality. Exclusion was embedded in the very spatial and infrastructural dynamics of Rio’s Olympic city: as phrased by the Comitê Popular, Olympic architecture created “visible and invisible walls [promoting] the socio-spatial segregation of the city.”14 The privatisation of public space was a key transformation catalysing inequality and exclusion in the Olympic city. Rio’s Olympic bid vaguely promised that the Olympic villages would provide new housing, emphasising the dossier’s tenets of “social inclusion” as a legacy of the games.15 Yet studies show that Olympic villages, rather than being re-developed into much needed lower income housing, tend to be converted into luxury real estate.16 In addition to floundering on promises of housing provision, these manoeuvres further entrench socio-economic disparity in the city by increasing luxury housing growth, driving up rent prices and squeezing out under-privileged residents from desirable real estate locations. Favela removal operations render the city’s already disadvantaged citizens particularly vulnerable to socio-economic marginalisation and discrimination.17

Arenas of difference and discipline Housing apart, MSEs tend to privatise free, public spaces: the historical trajectory of stadiums in Rio de Janeiro exemplifies the trend towards the commercialisation of popular urban space. Once a symbol of national identity and an emblem around which the nation could rally, transcending even the deepest social divides, stadiums in Rio de Janeiro today have become sites reinforcing social and economic marginalisation. From the early twentieth century, Brazil’s growing interest in sports crystallised in the stadium, a space that “served to order conceptions of the nation.”18 Stadiums are theorised as spaces reflecting and reproducing social dynamics, providing “privileged insight into urban power relations.”19 The “shift from citizenship to consumerism”20 ascribed to modern MSEs can be traced in the evolution of stadium culture. The stadium in Rio de Janeiro transformed from a neutral public space to a site of consumerism, no longer detached from social divisions: the very architectural composition of stadiums began to mirror the external reality. Starting in the nineties and continuing today, stadium design has aimed to attract wealthier spectators and organise the space within stadiums, supported

Taken in the Arvore Seca favela at a crêche—the Brazilian equivalent of daycare. We visited Arvore Seca with Annabel and two French Olympic swimmers, who were representing the French charity Sal da Terra, a religious organization that provides support to crêches in Rio’s favelas. In a discussion with volunteers for the organization, we learned that many crêches sponsored by the state have had to close due to decreased funding and unattainable training requirements for the volunteers, part-time students, and church workers who take double duty as teachers and babysitters at the crêche.

Despite a gloomy perception of the future, the present was filled with excitement for the Olympics. The kids were ecstatic to meet participants in the games, and they had been getting ready by decorating the entire crêche. Arvore Seca is occupied by the UPP, and we also noticed trafficker presence on the hill.

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[30] by new IOC and FIFA regulations stipulating that event venues would require quotas of VIP seating, parking tickets and ticketed seats.21 Changes made to the Maracaña stadium in the nineties represented a shift towards a “Euro-American style of spectatorship whereby elites are able to distance themselves from the crowd.”22 Finally, the inflated costs of stadium maintenance once MSEs have ended mean that governments, rather than making sporting venues available for public use, overcharge local spectators to offset the cost overruns.23 The growing cost of sports spectatorship aggravates structures of exclusion by restricting access to sports entertainment infrastructure to those who can afford it—hardly compatible with the ostensibly inclusive Olympic vision.

Patterns in stadium design and infrastructure point to worrying trends in social power relations. Specifically, the development of infrastructure such as stadiums is usually accompanied by increased police presence in public spaces. In Rio de Janeiro, where state security policies and forces are notorious for racial profiling and police brutality, sporting events may actually threaten human security—especially for lower-income citizens. Increased militarisation in Rio invariably amplifies police violence, which may result in civilian deaths.24 To put tourist safety concerns at ease, pockets of the city become “safety bubbles” by stationing police or UPPs—these policies have a particularly negative impact on Rio’s impoverished youth.25 The rest of the population is not exempt from creeping mechanisms of state control introduced during MSEs— interconnected Olympic infrastructure produces “governable spaces” and “social discipline.”26 Measures like ticketing and increased surveillance and security in stadiums today highlight a “desire to impose a new kind of social order in public space”27 and tend to stick even after the events finish, effectively maintaining the same level of state control justified under MSE exceptionalism rhetoric once the city returns to normal.

Parties at the top capitalise off the appropriation and commodification of public spaces for private, international and state interests, broadening their influence and entrenching the status-quo, while locals—especially those already vulnerable to socio-economic difficulties—are left behind, waking up after the closing ceremonies more trapped than ever in cycles of social exclusion and injustice.

Military presence was pervasive during the games.

Soldiers were stationed throughout the city, especially conspicuous in affluent areas like Copacabana [below], amid the international media frenzy over safety concerns for foreigners in the Olympic city. Trucks full of soldiers were a common sight.

They were generally friendly to tourists, and occasionally posed for pictures. They may put tourists at ease, but for many citizens in Rio de Janeiro military presence serves only as a painful reminder of endemic police brutality in the city.

[Right] The beach volleyball stadium was a fulcrum of activity. Situated right in the center of Copacabana beach, the announcer was audible from kilometers away, and the spotlights climbed higher than any building on the beach front.

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Angelica

We first met Angelica by chance, at the teleferico station at the top of Complexo Alemão.

We were all investigative journalists with an interest in exposing the iceberg beneath Rio’s surface. We agreed to meet again a few days later at a cafe in Copacabana to talk at length and arrange a more formal visit to Alemão.

An ambitious producer and director, Angelica’s company Maruti Blue is currently working on two projects, one of which, Marc Grieco’s “A River Below” recently won awards at Tribeca Film Festival. At the time of writing she is touring the UK.

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My name is Angelica Melo, I’m 43 years old. I’m a producer and movie director.

A: I was born outside Rio, in a very poor area, in extreme poverty. I started working when I was 10 years old, and work eventually forced me to move to the city.

A: I moved to a favela in the city by myself when I was 18, 19. At the time, I worked in a drug store. I found out I was going to be promoted but they didn’t want to give me the position because I lived so far away. So I moved to the closest possible place, which was the favela Barra da Tijuca. It was a very dangerous favela.

That was the moment I started witnessing how tough it is to live in a favela. I think it’s always like this to those living in a favela–-there is a war that’s not yours. There are drug dealers and the police, and you are in the middle. Everything you want–-to wake up every day, work, pay your bills, have fun when you can – you can’t have because [you’re] in the middle of this gunfire. The people in favelas always want to be free.

Cai: Did you feel the traffickers were a part of your community, or were you more inclined to support the police?

A: Oh, never. I would never support the police. Not because you don’t appreciate order and security.

It’s just because the police are very brutal to people in the favela. At the end of the day, the ones who really own the favela are the drug dealers, so you have to follow their rules. If I have suffered some kind of violence, it wasn’t from the drug dealers, it was from the police.

C: What’d your family think of the move?

A: My family went crazy when I said I was moving to a favela. Back in those days they were worse, but I was a provider [for the family] and they had to understand. I lived there for almost two years, but it was too dangerous so I moved back.

C: Now you’re successful, producing films, interacting with people on an international scale. Would you say the fact that you were required to work to help your family distanced you from negative influences in the favela, people who might get you into trafficking?

A: The thing is, living in a favela, you are exposed much more to the evil side of life.

You live side-by-side the drug dealers, but they won’t come to you saying “Hey, hey work for me”, what I’ve seen is people go to them. Being a woman in a racist and sexist gun trade, it is much easier to say “Okay, I don’t want this”. I think my family, despite all the problems I faced, gave me the right structure to not fall for this. I’ve seen many girls and boys joining this life. It’s not just a money issue. It’s something much deeper. I’ve met rich girls, you know, well-educated, maybe they weren’t involved with the traffic, but they were involved with so much stuff. But when you have a good infrastructure, and keep focused, you learn how to establish your priorities. It’s easy to be out of their way.

“...living in a favela there is a war that’s not yours”

C: How did you get into filmmaking?

A: I started writing plays when I was in school. I’ve always loved to write. At some point, I was writing plays at school with my friends, I was producing, I was directing. That was a good way to escape from my reality. But it’s not easy when you’re poor. For 30 years I had all kinds of professions. 12, 15 years ago, I started helping friends from outside the country and in 2008, 2007, I met this journalist through Couchsurfing. I was helping her with translating and things. She said, “This is good, you’re doing really well at this. There’s a name for it, a producer.”

The international media is much more professional, people respect me a lot more, because here, I don’t know anybody. I met fantastic people along the way who understood what I wanted to do and six years ago, with my relationship to the favelas and my own life experiences, I decided –I need to make a documen-

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tary. I need to do something. Give something back.

It was easy for me. I know the game, I’m not just a visitor. I’ve lived what they lived.

I met this guy, David Morris.† I told him I wanted to make a documentary called “The Other Side of the Postcard”, and he helped me. I work hard, so it’s easy to do what I do. I interview drug dealers, I interview poor people, it’s easy to put into a compilation and learn more but you have to be a hard worker. I was very lucky, because I met good people who understood me, and respected me a lot. † David Morris is Angelica’s co-producer, working with her I’m not rich, I don’t on the documentary “The Other have money. All my money Side of the Postcard”. is for my small company, and I always try to help people the way I can. But yeah, I’m happy with what I do.

Favela: Identity and Representation C: How would you identify a favela?

A: I think favelas are the most creative place in the city. Their architecture is unique, the way they live, they are able to adapt to anything because they are made of steel, they are made of stone. You see them losing people, dodging bullets, but they’re having fun, smiling, being nice to you. I love favelas. I don’t know if these people would be the same if they lived in the asfalto.

Paola: How do you strike a balance in your work between showing reality without stigmatizing favela communities?

A: I show both sides. I show people’s achievements.

But at the same time, I have to show the problems.

People from the favelas don’t want the war, they don’t want to be in the middle of these shootings you know, they want success. Which is why I take journalists like you guys there—-so that you can show that there’s much more than poverty and dirty kids walking the streets, dodging bullets every day.

Infrastructure, Inequality, and Politics Ross: Over the years, has favela infrastructure im-

proved?

A: I haven’t been in Barra da Tijuca for a long time, but I was filming there four months ago and it is much better than 20 years ago. Rocinha has improved a lot.§ But there are key problems like sewage, schools, these problems, they keep happening.

C: I have heard that there are issues in schools with inconsistent electricity and water supplies, or teachers not showing up. Is that common?

A: Yeah, very common. For example, in Alemão,* besides infrastructural problems, there are shootouts. Kids can’t go to school because of shootings.

For some favelas, it is much more complicated than lack of government care.

R: Does the government provide schools in Alemão?

A: There is one, and you saw how large [Alemão is], it is impossible. It is a very tricky moment for favelas, with election time. You’ll start to see politicians…

R: Pandering?

A: Yeah, you know… I’m very tired of this, I know the game. I’ve been filming favelas for a long time.

It’s always the same complaint. Politicians trying to get votes but never helping people. That’s why, for people in favelas, § Rocinha is a favela in Rio’s it’s so delicate. There’s South Zone and is the largest the government, the po- favela in Brazil. lice, the drug dealers… * Complexo do Alemão, located everyone is like a leech. in Rio’s North Zone, is a large Sucking all their energy. collection of favelas.

In the favela, there are a lot of voters.

C: Do you feel those political trends contribute to Rio’s chronic problems with wealth inequality?

A: It’s so complicated to talk about inequality in this country. I think inequality is related to our past with slavery. I’m a black woman, this is my hair. If the two of us were in a restaurant in Copacabana—you look like a gringo, a foreigner—people hearing us speak in English will try to figure out how I can speak English so well. In their minds, we can’t achieve that, because that’s what history has taught them. And of course, we have a lot corruption. Our

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“Morro and Asfalto, they are like two different worlds that don’t know each other at all.”

politicians, they facilitate this inequality.

If you go to a school, ask them to show you the school programme—Math, Portuguese, history, it’s weak. This keeps poor people like dummies, while rich people have access to the best. So how can poor people have access to knowledge, and achieve their goals if they don’t have what they need most, access to education?

C: What about potential solutions? Is it just about getting the right candidate, or a restructuring of the system?

A: I’m always going to fight for education. I think we need to have a lot of schools in the favelas, in these poor neighborhoods. Good schools, not schools without infrastructure. The day we have this type of structure, we are going to be able to do better.

We’re going to be able to question everything.

C: On education in the favelas: there’s a lack of schools? Do most kids not go to school? How are they selected for admission?

A: It’s open to everyone, but most of the time, there aren’t vacancies for students. I know some people who wake up early in the morning to try to get a place for their kids and they can’t–-it’s so difficult, people give up on it.

C: So they’re not necessarily exclusive — it’s just that there isn’t adequate capacity?

** Bonsucceso is a neighborhood in the North Zone of Rio, which used to be a small hub for industry. It also has a train station that connects to the cable car that services Complexo do Alemão

A: Yeah. So, for example, in Rocinha, there are over 300,000 people and I think there are †† Lapa is a neighborhood in just 3 schools. I think the center of Rio known for its there should be schools historical Carioca aquaduct, exclusively for parents built in the mid-18th Century as well. For example, I to carry water from the Carioca am a single mother, I river to the center of Rio, couldn’t go to school, and for its modern, bustling I couldn’t finish high- nightlife. school. I wish I could study at night to give my son an education. We’re going to help each other, and then we’re going to grow together.

Poverty, Racism, and the UPP

[37] Ross: Would you say racism is supported by historical institutions?

A: Yeah, our history with slavery. Why are there people in the favelas? Favelas are places where poor black people go when they become free. They didn’t have anywhere to go, so they went to the hills. People said “you’re free, but I won’t give you a job.”

You are not free when you don’t have an education and a job to provide for your family. You are not free.

C: Would you say it goes beyond racism to discrimination towards people from favelas? Because there’s ethnic diversity within favelas.

A: I say it’s a bit of each. Racism and discrimination. For example, if you say you live in the favela, people will look at you differently. Maybe, nowadays, because of the internet, people can see what its really like, and many foreigners visit the favelas. But yesterday, I took a cab, and I was going with my friends to Alemão. And the driver said “Oh, we’re going to Bonsucesso?”** And I said “Yes, we’re going to Alemão.” I don’t know how it started, but he said “Tell me, when are we going to have less favelas?” I said “I hope never. What I hope, is people in the favelas have a good life like you have, the same respect that you receive.” There are people who don’t like favelas. They say “I really don’t understand why those gringos want to go. Gringos love to see poor people.” Morro and Asfalto, they are like two different worlds that don’t know each other at all.

C: I’ve heard people say it’s not a race war, nor a war on drugs, but a war on poverty. Is that something you would agree with?

A: I can’t agree 100%, because there’s poverty outside the favelas. There are other neighborhoods, for example, where I was born. It’s not a favela but it’s a poor area. I think because our policemen and our society don’t know the favelas well, they’ve created a lot of stereotypes. I think it’s a bit about race, and this slavery thing is very strong. One day I was in Lapa†† with a colleague, I saw some cops I wanted to talk to. I told them I film in favelas—immediately their faces changed. It’s complicated, it’s a social thing now, it’s not just about being black but about being poor.

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C: Do you think the city’s solution of pacification is a positive or negative thing for favela communities?

A: For example, in Santa Marta, from what I’ve heard, they say it’s much better now.

C: Even though the pacification process can involve violence?

A: Yeah, well I think that the process, installing the UPP is not the same in every favela. It’s one program, but taking the UPP to Alemão is much tougher than taking them to Santa Marta.

C: So it might not be a solution for every favela?

A: Yeah. You’ll see in my documentary— there’s this colonel saying “The problem with the UPP program, why it’s failing, it’s because they started with Santa Marta and instead of waiting and identifying gaps and problems, they spread it out and just put it in a lot of places.” And that’s why in some places, it really didn’t work.

Politics and Disparity

“...Listen to this and never forget it: We are a rich country inside of a poor country. Why? Because of our politicians. Our politicians are our cancer.”

C: On wealth disparity, would you say it comes down to a lack of people standing up to it and trying to integrate those communities or is somebody actively working against those communities?

A: I am very suspicious to talk about governmental actions. I am 43 and in my whole life I have witnessed corruption, in so many sectors, the feeling is that [the government] doesn’t care. I think that if they really wanted to do something substantial they would have done it a long time ago. When I was a little girl, my mom told me ‘Listen to this and never forget it: We are a rich country inside of a poor country. Why? Because of our politicians.’ Our politicians are our cancer.

But I also believe that as citizens we need to start being responsible, watching for our votes, watching for our own corrupt actions, you know, because at some point, it’s not just the government.

C: So how can these politicians succeed in elections while neglecting favela needs? Is there disengagement from the favelas? Who or what allows this to happen?

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A: What happens is an Alderman gets elected and then forgets about the people. That’s what happens, because its power, because you have money.

Sports and the Olympics R: Do you think if better athletic and creative programs were developed, it would not only help to connect people inside and outside of the favelas but also keep people away from trafficking?

A: People in favelas will tell you “We don’t want your money; we want opportunities”. The secret for this is real social projects, the community knowing their problems needs to come to you and say “We need that”.

Alemão, for example, when it was pacified it had this big party. Prince Harry went there and played with the kids, and some NGOs went there and made a lot of projects and took pictures. Everything was gone in less than a year. Because it was just for show.

C: What effects did you see on the community in the build-up to the Olympics?

A: I don’t have an answer that would cover this question. For example, in Alemão, I’ve seen some changes. The government, what they really wanted, was to turn the favelas into neighborhoods. So, at some points, it was good. For example, I interviewed the president of the Asa Branca community, near the Olympic Park and he told me: “For us, that was a blessing. We have better streets; we have better infrastructure”. A lot of good things happened to this community. Some people say, “Oh the Olympics, we have priorities.” And yeah, we have a lot of priorities, and I’m going to be very honest with you, as a citizen, someone who lives here, someone who goes to the favelas all the time, if someone had asked me back in 2009 if my vote would swing the decision to host the 2016 Olympics in Rio, I would vote no.

Not because I hate the Olympics, but because we have priorities. §§ Senzalas were large slave accommodations in Brazilian colonies between the 16th and 19th centuries. They were run by white, European foremen.

I heard someone from Alemão describe it well—Rio is a house. The government wants to put on a nice party for the guests, but instead of refurbishing

the kitchen, the heart of the house, or the bedroom where the kids sleep, they decided to refurbish the yard, and put a swimming pool in it—which is not a fucking priority.

Go to the hospitals, talk to people—not people who can afford health insurance. Go to the public hospitals and ask them what they want. The games? A party?

No, they want hospitals and schools for their kids.

It’s about priorities. It’s not about being good or not being good. It’s about prioritizing.

C: That’s something I’ve heard from others, it’s not that they don’t like watching the Games, it’s that they feel their community was not ready to bear this weight.

A: Yeah. We love football, we appreciate sports help a lot of kids in favelas, brings a lot of opportunities, but we need schools, we need hospitals, we need our policemen to be well-paid so they don’t have to corrupt themselves. Yeah, Rio is an amazing city, great, but, we don’t need our swimming pool right now.

R: Why do you think that the mayor and the government thought it was in their interest to have the Olympics? Do you think it’s the I.O.C.’s responsibility to identify when a city might not be prepared?

A: I think they should do their homework. I heard someone say–-“There are two Rios. The party out front, and the kitchen in the back”—-that’s where we are, the poor. It’s hard, people are suffering a lot.

C: This Olympics has been referred to as the Exclusion Games, what are your thoughts on that name?

A: Many people lost their houses, and when you don’t have your house, it touches your dignity. You want your shelter; you want to give the best to your family. It is a reality in this country. Poor people will always be hunted by cops. The favelas are the Senzalas of the 21st century. The policemen are the foremen.§§ It hasn’t changed much.

C: Are you proud of Rio hosting the 2016 games?

A: I’m proud that I produced the news, that I showed the other side—the kitchen.

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[ Two sides of an Olympic narrative ]

Lambe

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Lambe* [ with artwork and writing

by Fรกbio Carvalho ]

[44] The Olympics is so immersive that from the ground, our perception is of a city transformed into an amusement park, an athletic trade show, an exhibition, and a competition.

The structure boasts thousands of paid employees, 240,000 official volunteers, over 2,000,000 attendees.1 Caught in a tide this size, it can be difficult to perceive any cracks in the dam. For the average attendee, the Olympic experience is so complete, so joyous, that any cultural—or physical—violence enacted in the process of facilitating such a rapturous experience becomes a footnote on a balance sheet.

* Lambe Lambe is the Brazilian Portuguese term for wheatpasting, a form of graffiti that uses pre fabricated, paper designs and homemade glue to attach slogans to walls, doors, and even the spaces in between tiles, a direct reference to the Portuguese “azulejo” style.

Pervasive throughout all of this—the whirlwind of consumerist exchange, the colorful expositions and exhibitions, the capitalist exploitation of culture—was the “façade”: a barrier physical at times, less tangible at others, and intentionally invisible to the international media. The façade eliminates crucial elements of Rio de Janeiro from the official Olympic narrative, a grand, utopian story that superficially accounts for the struggles of marginalized groups. Instead, it favors a whitewashed and homogenized version of Brazilian culture, as ambiguous and cute as Vinicius and Tom, the Pokemon-esque Rio 2016 mascots. While Rio’s cultural history is a crash course in marginalization and inequality, the Olympic version is as plush as a R$ 25 Vinicius stuffed toy—manufactured for mass consumption, and ultimately filled with fluff. Through our visits to the favelas, the West Zone Olympic facilities, the Centro development, and Copacabana, we strove to explore the edges of this façade, and understand how the Olympic Committee and the Rio Government attempts to obscure the distribution of benefits of hosting the Olympics.

Parsing the Façade The façade appears early in the Olympic bidding process. The IOC is vociferous about the long term benefits of hosting, but the consensus among economists regarding the “Olympic effect” is skeptical at best. Rose and Spiegel (2009) found that there was a positive net trade benefit for successful bid cities. They also found a net trade benefit for unsuccessful bid cities, which might mean consumers internalize the signal to “internationalize” in and of itself more than they internalize the promotion of the chosen host. But Flyvbjerg and Stewart (2012) produced a sobering statistic: the Olympics exceed costs 100% of the time. Cost overrun is on average 179%.

This does not mean every high rise, tunnel, metro station, or bridge is a financial catastrophe. In any case, many of these projects will recoup the money over time. To take on the Olympics, though, is to take on one of the most “financially risky” megaprojects that exists.2 Even existing structures are not guaranteed sanctity if a host city comes under financial duress. Maracaña stadium, the largest stadium in Brazil, was temporarily abandoned as it incurred “nearly 3 million reais” of debt to public power provider Light.3 Neither Maracaña SA, the stadium’s management, nor Rio 2016 wanted to claim responsibility for the fee.

Host cities are bound by the IOC to “ensure the financing of all major capital infrastructure investments required to deliver the Olympic Games” and “cover a potential economic shortfall of the OCOG [Organizing Committee for Olympic Games].” Budget projections submitted in the initial proposal are laughably inaccurate, but this is the point, as a successful bid is accompanied by the IOC’s magical bureaucratic circumnavigation powers. A new budget will be recreated after this, which accounts for some of the increased cost, but again tends

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[Cara] Exploring The Olympic Faรงade

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to fall short of the final bill. The host is ultimately responsible for: costs, which are the operational costs incurred by the Organising Committee for the purpose of ‘staging’ the Games.

01. -TheOCOG largest components of this budget are technology, transportation, workforce, and administration costs, while other costs include items like security, catering, ceremonies and medical services.

direct costs, which are the construction costs incurred by the host city or country or private investors to build 02. -theNon-OCOG competition venues, Olympic Village(s), International Broadcast Centre (IBC) and Media and Press Centre (MPC), which are

03.

required to host the Games.

- Non-OCOG indirect costs, such as road, rail or airport infrastructure, or private costs such as hotel upgrades or business investment incurred in preparation for the Games.4

This, in essence, is a legally binding “blank cheque” imposed by a foreign, for-profit organization, which allows a government to overrun costs in an effort to spend on projects of their interest. In some cases, such as the Athletes Village, for which the Vila Autódromo favela was razed,5 the government’s Olympic interests conveniently coincide with a more subconscious desire to “beautify” Rio’s coasts. Some favelas sit on real estate developers value more than the lives currently inhabiting it. Quite frankly, as the population becomes more sympathetic to the rights of the poor, and as the favelas become more permanent by the year, benefiting from Squatters Rights law6 (which, in theory, grant ownership of land occupied for five years) and a gradual integration process, it is increasingly difficult for the city to oust them to construct luxury condominiums.

Touching the Façade — On The Olympic Boulevard The façade is like a stain—it penetrates deeper than just the government’s balance sheets, effacing aspects of Brazilian culture to suit its goals. In order to learn this, we spent a day with Fábio Carvalho, an artist born and raised in Rio, whose art explores themes of masculinity and athleticism using traditional Portuguese motifs and techniques such as the iconic azulejo tiles.§ It was Fábio who introduced us to the concept of the façade, which he claims existed even before the Olympics, and threatens to crush Brazil’s original sins of slavery, homophobia, and sexism by way of hegemonic might. He paints soldiers and military police with butterflies wings, and wrestlers ensnared by flowers. There is an admiration of the male body, but also a sense of monotony in his characters: they are like the male drones of an ant colony, conditioned to pursue aggressive body ideals and to defend their honor. Fábio speaks with excitement and weariness—he is passionate about the history of Brazil’s many marginalized groups, but like many cariocas we spoke to, he is exceedingly jaded towards the ability of the government to reform.

Despite his enthusiasm for the Porto Maravilha† and other revitalization projects in downtown Rio, Fábio remains reticent about the future. Cariocas are used to watching promises collapse and projects unravel. It is ultimately something we will be unable to experience as temporary observers, as the Olympic façade has been expertly constructed to avoid people like us colliding with its structural failures. Without his eye, we would have failed to notice the old foundation of the slave port, suspiciously absent from the Olympic program.

Our walk began in front of the Teatro Municipal, an opulent building from the turn of the century. As we walked through the city’s financial heart on our way to Praça Mauá, huge Parisian avenues, the sort preferred by city planners of metropole around the world, cut through the glass and steel. A brand new above-ground tram (VLT) snaked through these streets, connecting the airport to the Olympic Boulevard and the historic port via praça XV and praça Mauá. Fresh, colorful pictograms tried to sort the traffic—foot on footpath, bike on

§ Azulejo tiles are decorative and architectural features in Portuguese and Spanish architecture, used to decorate churches, houses, and other edifices with religious and cultural imagery. They often chronicle Portuguese history, and are some of the most iconic images of the country’s culture. † A massive urban renewal project that saw the demolition of a squatter community (as well as the highway overpass above it), and construction of a new museum and promenade, the Porto Maravilha is the social centerpiece of Rio’s Olympic project.

See photo on page 20.

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The illustrations of the athletes have been chosen also as a direct reference to the official narrative of “Olympic legacy” which is used to justify the (sometimes aggressive) changes that the region in which the art-in-residence took place has undergone for several years before the 2016 Olympic Games. The Gamboa region has a rich history of Portuguese occupation, and is still punctuated by old buildings from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, whose facades are tiled as when originally built. The small squares of paper were applied on walls and facades already in a state of abandonment or degradation, sometimes forming panels, sometimes just one. The images of athletes, obtained from vintage illustrations, were reworked, laser printed on paper, and then hand painted with floral ornaments stencils.

cycleway—but all sense of order and direction were lost in the excited crowd. It was a national holiday, and the streets buzzed. Our goal for the day was not only to observe the throngs of visitors drawn by the new Olympic attractions, but also to see how relentless and messy development in the former capital could be, and how along every major throughway, a “façade” existed. Behind this was the guts and arteries of Rio Centro, laboring to keep the city afloat.

Disappearing Act — The Façade and the Environment The issue of inequality loomed large over Brazil’s Olympic project, with particular attention paid to differences in quality of sanitation and habitat. Favela residents are at a greater risk for mud slides and flash floods, and some must also collect their water from natural sources. Municipal provision of sanitation varies heavily, and reporters had a field day in the weeks leading up to the Games, when sailors and surfers practicing in Guanabara Bay collided with floating garbage and contracted infections. Revitalization of urban areas was promised, as well as much needed environmental reforms in Guanabara Bay and other areas where poor waste management has ballooned out of control. Instead of a clearly defined plan, though, Rio mostly stalled on the clean up, preferring to highlight the construction of the Museum of Tomorrow and the Olympic Boulevard.

As a city that is ultimately defined by its staggering inequality, many developed nations tut-tutted the city’s inability to address environmental issues with the same attention paid to the Athlete’s village, especially considering how “green” Rio professed its efforts to be. Some of this is simply a result of rapid population growth and industrialisation. On the other hand, certain transactions remain invisible from the public eye. While visiting Penha Circular, a bairro in the North Zone, we were shown a gaping scar in the Tijuca forest. Large enough to be seen with satellite maps, the government had rezoned the land as a city park—instead of protected national park land—so that it could be turned into a quarry for stone, which, as we were told, was used to build parking lots and Olympic infrastructure. Spectators and cariocas alike traverse these stones, park on top of them, sit down among them in the shade, but they can never know how the materials have been gutted from their beloved national parks.

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[Otra Cara] Growing up in Macho Rio

[49] One of the founding Olympic tenets, as espoused by its aristocratic founder, Pierre de Coubertin, was to encourage a healthier “stock” of European man.1 Although the nude female figure was included on the official advertisement for the first modern games, women were only considered spectators. In many ways, 2016 was a year that challenged orthodoxy. In some instances, the Olympics show how far we’ve come in terms of representation. Transgender athletes, although they were few, were allowed to compete where they felt they belonged. The biggest stars were still all male, but female teams, many of them new, garnered significant attention in volleyball, football, rugby sevens, cycling. Female representation was also strong in water sports, combat, and gymnastics, where the United States in particular has a historically dominant program, but this year faced significant competition from the Lithuanian and Russian teams. It was interesting to see these changes dominate in Rio, known for fostering a dangerously prideful form of “macho” masculinity. Aspects of Brazilian machismo projected onto Rio’s trafficking gangs are heavily romanticized, but rarely is the task of elucidation given to a voice that has experienced such an environment firsthand. Fábio Carvalho shares a candid portrait of his life growing up in Rio. The following is written in his own words.

Learn To Hide Living and growing up under a sexist, “macho” society is a tricky situation, especially if you are a child in the 1970s in Brazil. Even if your family is not a retrograde one, the strong male/female roles and stereotypes are there, and you absorb that as “truth.” So, when you’re a boy, you’re pushed to some patterns of expected behaviors. But what if you prefer to play house with your cousin, or to do gardening with you grandmother, or you dream about being Gene Kelly, to learn how to play the piano, to dance and sing just like in the old musicals, instead of playing soccer with the other boys? I think we all know the answer to that. When I was a child, I enjoyed playing with toy cowboys/soldiers, with toy fire guns, toy cars, toy airplanes, as much as I enjoyed to sing and dance, and wanted so bad to have a toy oven that actually bakes cakes! (It did exist back then!) Why should I have to choose this over that? Why couldn’t I have fun with it all? Anyway, you grow up, and you learn that you must hide your desires, and emulate what’s “right”. Even way before I’ve realized that I was a gay boy (around 16 going on to 17), I knew how I had to be and behave, always feeling inside that I was somehow inappropriate, misfit, inadequate. A life in silence, shame, anxiety and fear, to say the least. A constant fear of being wrong at school, of being wrong in life in general, because even when I was right, even if I had the best grades, I was already, somehow, wrong. And oh boy! How does it harm you for life!

A movement that started in the 1970s, according to Stephen M. Whitehead,2 of gay men “cloning” themselves as the heteronormative “macho” stereotypes, to stand against the common sense that homosexual men were “soft”, weak, effeminate. Take for instance the “Macho Man” song, by the American disco group Village People, with their on-stage costumes depicting masculine stereotypes—sailor, policeman, soldier, athlete, native american, cowboy, leatherman, construction worker: “Every man wants to be a macho macho man...” This leads us to the muscle queen gay culture in the 1990s. You must have muscles, you must be fit. Well, I’ve always been chubby or fat since my childhood, until my late 20s, when I was borderline obese. So I was again – even in a gay club, or any gay environment where I should feel free, at ease – feeling inappropriate, misfit, inadequate.

“I’ve got to be, a macho man”, or else, I’m nobody, nothing. So I had to go to the gym, and reshaped myself, my body, just to “belong”. Now it seems that there’s a shift in the masculine gay scene in Brazil, or at least a claim for a non-binary fluidity, more diversity on what a man can be or how he can behave. The top of the “food chain”

“Every man wants to be a macho macho man / To have the kind of body, always in demand / Jogging in the mornings, go man go / Works out in the health spa, muscles glow / You can best believe that, he’s a macho man / Ready to get down with, anyone he can / Macho, macho man (macho man) / I’ve got to be, a macho man”

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in the gay community, after being occupied by the hyper masculine hyper virile white middle/upper class studs and muscle queens, now has been for a while shaken by the beforehand outcasts: the queer ones, the “bears” (chubby/hairy guys), the fairies, the effeminates, and so forth. Unfortunately, those who have been mistreated for so long by the “kings”, are now playing the same bad game, mistreating them, when muscle queens go to “alternative” clubs and parties. I just wish we could all get together, regardless our shapes, color, size, weight, behavior, hairdo. But, hey, we’re all just stupid flawful human beings.

Learning to Fight Back Although this is MY personal life story, I’m sure there’s a lot of that in any gay teen/young man’s life. It took me quite a while to feel strong enough to reach the point to address my discomfort with the rules of gender on my art work. My current work emerged as a reflection on the elements that compose the stereotypes of gender identity in the childhood, such as the toys that are given to children, and that they are encouraged and allowed to play with: balls, cars, guns, soldiers and more active and strength activities for boys; dolls, tea sets, dinner and miniature pots, and other delicate and sensitive activities for girls, particularly those that mimic the homebound culturally accepted as feminine. This division into two distinct worlds, even when unintentionally, can be used to direct and determine the future personality of a child. The experience of childhood, through the socialization conducted by playing, allows children to build themselves as ‘little men’ and ‘little women’.

After exploring the world of toys and childhood, my work went on to the subject of virility adult world, where stereotypes are already well established: the soldier, the bodybuilder, the cowboy, the hard labor worker and the successful businessman. I seek to question the common sense that strength and fragility, virility and poetry, masculinity and vulnerability cannot coexist. The urban intervention Olympia Occupation, especially created for the Artistic Hostel art-in-residence project consists of a series of small works on paper, referring to the Portuguese tiles, with illustrations of athletes (particularly the more traditional sport practices). The strong and healthy athletes are used here as another stereotype of the “right and proper” masculinity, the role model for the perfect virility a boy should aim for if he wants to be popular and successful.

In the “lambe lambe” fashion (wheat paste/poster art), the work was pasted on walls as paper wall tiles, directly referencing the Portuguese’s single figure tiles. The Gamboa region has a rich history of Portuguese occupation, and is still punctuated by a series of old buildings from the mid nineteenth to the early twentieth century, whose facades are tiled as when originally built. The small squares of paper were applied on walls and facades already in a state of abandonment or degradation in the Gamboa neighborhood, sometimes forming panels, sometimes just one single tile. The images of athletes, obtained from vintage illustrations, were reworked by me, laser printed on paper, and then hand painted with floral ornaments stencils. The illustrations of the athletes have been chosen also as a direct reference to the official narrative of “Olympic Games’ legacy” which is used to justify the (sometimes aggressive) changes that this region has undergone for several years before the 2016 Olympic Games.

— Fábio Carvalho, april 2017

“Sports have always been a place where masculinity is learned and practiced.…For athletic boys, sports are a path to success and popularity.

Conversely, too, boys who lack athletic interest or ability risk remaining on the periphery of masculinity....The very nature of sports is associated with core tenets of masculinity — physicality, aggression, competition, and winning”.3

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Gabriela e Bianca

Gabriela and Bianca are cousins, both aged 17.

They live in Complexo da Maré, in the North Zone of Rio, near the airport. Maré is a collection of multiple favelas that have become integrated over time. It is the most recent recipient of the Police Pacification Program, which aims to eradicate trafficker presence in the favela. As a result of the UPP occupation, it can be dangerous and unpredictable.

For the interview, we met at the beach, which is considered a comfortable meeting place -somewhat “neutral” ground -- for residents from both the Morro and Asfalto.

TRANSLATION AND ASSISTANCE BY ANNABEL BRITTON Bianca: I was born in Complexo da Maré and still live there.

Gabriela: I was born in Guadeloupe and moved to Maré when I was 15.

B: My parents are from Ceará, a state in the north, and when they were 16 they came to Rio to work in restaurants.

Cai: Do your parents ever talk about what motivated them to move?

B: If they were born now, they would probably stay, but at the time there were no jobs.

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B: It’s almost impossible to think of a week where someone doesn’t die in the Maré. Usually, I would say, it’s like 5 people a week.

C: When people die is it usually due to police invading the community?

B: It’s usually due to a gun fight between police and the drug dealers, but it’s not just them that die, it’s innocent workers, bystanders.

C: What do you think the motives of the police are for coming into your community?

G: Slavery has finished, but nothing black people. Black people and those favelas, they have no value. Someone ing. It’s as if it doesn’t matter in the police.

has changed for who live in the dies, it’s noththe slightest to

LIFE IN MARÉ

C: When they enter, are they attempting to pacify, push people out, are they attempting to get land?

C: In terms of safety, how would you describe your favela, and have you ever felt threatened there?

G: The UPP has not made anything better in the slightest, they’ve only made things worse. Before the UPP there was very little violence between drug dealers.

Now, there’s loads of violence all the time because it’s the police versus the drug dealers. It’s nothing to do with war on drugs, it’s a war on poor people. People in Ipanema can go around anywhere and take coke, they’ll be fine. They live in a different world, you know. It’s a war on poverty.

B: I’ve never felt threatened by drug dealers. Only the police. We’re currently living in a kind of war there; it’s been remarked on the news. It’s related to the Olympics.

G: The police and the state are just trying to put makeup on the real situation. The people who live here in Ipanema are actually the very few – the vast majority of people live in a different place. For example, the wall they put up along the Red line and the Avenue Brasil, with pictures of the Olympics. Behind the wall is a very different situation.

C: They put the wall up in an attempt to hide the favela?

G: Yeah.

C: How did your community react to that?

G: Well, we just have to accept it. We don’t have rights. There’s nothing we can do. There, if they just want to roam into your house in the morning, with no warrant, tear the place upside down, that’s just the end of the story. There’s nothing we can do.

C: How often does that happen?

LIFE AND EDUCATION C: As a young woman, what kind of influences are you exposed to in your community?

B: The influence from the street has often to do with things that are wrong. But from the strength of our family, and the fact that they’ve always been workers, as opposed to doing crime. We’ve been lucky, our parents put us through school. We’ve been raised with good values. But not everyone has family that will do that. Not everyone has conditions in their house that allow them to attend school and have all that.

C: So would you say it’s from the strength in your family that you’re not involved in crime?

B: I can say with certainty that it depends on your family whether you get involved with crime or become a

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worker.

that in Maré, because it isn’t near the beach.

G: It’s not a kind of divide in families between people that work and people that are involved in crime.

Basically, there are two paths you can go down. People don’t judge each other, there’s still a respect, they still interact. People involved in drug trafficking don’t abuse the working families.

C: Within the favela, do people ever feel ostracized because of their skin color?

C: Is it difficult to pursue education or employment outside of the favela?

B: I’m lucky, I managed to get into a course, it’s at a really good public school outside of the favela.

There’s not many spaces. My parents paid to get some tutoring so I could get into it…it’s a special course in a public school that you have to take a test to get into.

G: I go to a school inside the favela, we lose a lot of lesson time because sometimes there’s no water, sometimes there’s no lights, sometimes there’s no teachers.

They’re missing everything, it’s just hugely underfunded.

C: What do you think about the city’s ability to fund things when you see the developed areas like Ipanema and Copacabana?

G: The funding for the Olympics has all been taken from education and health. But we’re not against the hosting of the Olympics, we love the Olympics, and love sport, but we just don’t think the state was ready, and we can’t go see anything because it’s too expensive, so what have we got out of it? Nothing.

C: Given the opportunity, would your family move out of the favela?

G: Yes, because of the violence. It’s really sad. You see children out on the street, next you see a trafficker and someone smoking crack.

C: In a general sense, do you think the reputation the favela has is accurate, what would you change about the reputation to make it more accurate?

B: We don’t really know what people think about the favelas from outside. But when people think of Rio, they think of Copacabana, Ipanema, Sugarloaf, Cristo, the South Zone. They don’t really know anything about what goes on North of that. Some gringos or even Brazilians go on favela tours in Vidigal, or near Copacabana, and there aren’t really gunfights there. It’s like a safari, and it’s horrible. We don’t have something like

G: Inside the favela, there’s no such thing as a white person being treated differently, or excluded from anything. But if they come to the South Zone, all the shop assistants would come running to assist Bianca, whereas they wouldn’t for me.

TRAFFICKERS, COMMUNITY AND CULTURE C: Do the drug dealers provide some sort of infrastructure, or support to the community. Maybe the role the police are supposed to provide to the rest of the city?

G: They bring a lot of culture. They put on parties, Festa Junina, a festival that happens all June in Brazil. The kinds of things the state doesn’t provide for them.

C: Do they fill a void left by the city government?

G: They do bring a kind of justice, which the government doesn’t. There’s no rape, and there’s no robbery.

If you rape someone, you’re killed and if you rob, you get your hand cut off.

C: Does the favela you live in lack any amenities, such as electricity, or running water?

B: In the favela we have illegal lines which bring water and electricity off the main grid which no one pays for.

Sometimes there’s problems with sanitation, taking away the dirty water, but where we live it’s fine, other places have it much worse. Compared to the other favelas, we’re okay in terms of light and water, but in terms of violence Maré is worse than other favelas.

G: Occasionally, the water gets cut, but that only happens like five times a year, and more in the summer.

And in the summer there’s more an issue with the light cutting out at night, it’ll come off and come back on in the morning.

C: Do you feel proud to be part of your community?

G: I feel proud.

B: I have no shame.

C: Does that stem from the sense of community that exists there? What makes you most proud about your community?

B: Since we’ve been young, our parents have been very keen to instill the value of being humble, but also proud of being from a favela, not feeling different from any other Brazilian or person.

G: It’s a difficult question to answer, but it’s not the condition of our lives, our houses. We have to fight for everything we have, constantly, while people in other parts of the city don’t have to do that.

C: Why do you feel your community has more violence than others?

G: It’s partly because Maré is so big, it just has a lot of traffickers. Favelas out in the suburbs are different from the ones that are closer to more of the touristy stuff. In Vidigal, you can’t have gun fights there, it will hurt tourism. Up in the Maré, no tourist is ever going to know, or care. It’s nowhere near where tourists will go.

C: Do you think the police target your community more than others?

B: Yes. More so than other favelas. When the police aren’t there, everything is fine, people live in peace. As soon as they come by, everything kicks off.

THE OLYMPICS C: How do you feel about the Olympics?

B: It just feels far away. It’s happening in our city, on our doorstep, but we’re watching it on TV.

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a slap in the face because the beach is a public space for everyone, no matter where you’re from.

C: The Olympics intends to promote sportsmanship, equality, and inclusion. Do you feel the Rio 2016 Games have accomplished this?

B: There’s nothing positive we have to say about the Olympics.

C: Do you feel the way the city has implemented the games has contradicted Olympic aims?

G: Yes. Brazil just wasn’t ready to pay for it. They’ve had to cut a lot of services. It wasn’t the time for Brazil to host the Olympics. Each thing, with the [World] Cup, with the Panamerican Games--It’s just gotten worse. To the point where there are teachers who aren’t getting paid. On the news, the police aren’t getting paid. There are people who are used to a certain lifestyle--I’m sure it wasn’t luxurious--but then your pay is cut massively, and you’ve got your house, and your bills, and what do you do?

C: And prior to all these mega-events, that wasn’t happening?

G: This was already a problem, but now it is worse.

C: Tourism increases during the Olympics, do you think this can be positively affect the favela communities, or are the benefits restricted to the developed areas of the city?

G: It’s not going to bring anything to the favelas.

C: This Olympics has been referred to as the “Exclusion Games,” what are your thoughts on this name?

C: So you don’t feel included in any way?

B: It’s spot on. The poor haven’t been given any right to be a part of it.

G: I went to a hockey game, but Bianca didn’t go to anything.

C: Do you feel the decision to host the Games was desired by the people, or thrust upon you?

C: What impact do you think the games will have on Rio de Janeiro?

G: At the time, a lot of people celebrated, happy about it, we weren’t living in a crisis ter the World Cup, people started to realize being robbed. That’s when the demonstrations

G: There have been some small improvements in transport, but nothing felt by us. They’ve also been cutting the bus lines to make it harder to get to Ipanema and Copacabana. The one bus that went from Maré to Ipanema has been stopped and likely won’t be re-opened. We know it’s to stop poor people from getting to the beach. It’s

they were then. Afthey were started.

C: With Brazil’s national sporting identity, are you able to enjoy the Olympics, or does the fact that you know it’s harming your community prevent you from enjoying watching?

[56] B: What the government has done is what the government has done, and that’s a separate thing from how we feel about the sports going on. We’re extremely proud, we feel proud when we watch sports, particularly the example of Rafaela§ winning the Judo. It’s a dream of so many people in favelas. It’s a separate issue, and doesn’t discolor the joy.

C: Are you proud of Rio 2016?

G: Of the sport yes, of the fact that it is happening in Rio? No.

[Left] A sign in Lapa declares “Olympics of Death,” which could reference multiple acts of violence enacted by the state in preparation for the games, such as the UPP occupations, the forceful removal of settlements, or the increase in armed police presence in the downtown area.

[Right] On Ipanema beach, a timeless scene unfolds: people play volleyball and buy snacks and drinks on the golden sand.

The only giveaway of modernity is the “wi-fi” stand, a common site at the Games. In the background, the eternal silhouette of Dois Irmãos, a 533m high volcanic rock formation, looms large. The pacified favela below, Vidigal, is also visible. § Rafaela Silva won gold at Judo in the 57kg category, and has over a dozen medals from different championships, including the World Championships. She was born in Cidade de Deus (City of God), a large favela in the West Zone, and began training at the Instituto Reação at the age of 7. Every gold medal won by a Brazilian was a cause for great celebration, but Silva’s served as a defining positive moment for the favelas.

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“The funding for the Olympics has all been taken from education and health...we just don’t think the state was ready, and we can’t go see anything because it’s too expensive, so what do we get out of it?”

Street Art

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Just a five minute walk away from the Olympic Boulevard rejuvenation project, skaters were the only ones present on this Gamboa street. The area is steeped in AfroBrazilian history, playing a key role in the selling of slaves from Africa and other Portuguese colonies.

An archaeological site, the edge of the old port, is easily overlooked.

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[Bottom] The Devassa bar--also the name of a cariocan beer-served patrons of the Olympics in Copacabana.

[Right] A sign at the foot of the famous Escadaria Selarón, the “Selaron Steps,” in the bairros of Lapa and Santa Teresa.

The steps are one of Rio’s biggest tourist attractions, built by Chilean-born artist Jorge Selarón out of ceramic tiles found around the world. This mural was completed

by Selarón in 2014 to comemorate the World Cup, an event that also had a wide impact on Rio de Janeiro.

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[63] [Top Left] Some of the 19th century colonian structures in Gamboa still survive as houses, displaying the beautiful azulejo tiles originally affixed to their facades; others are repurposed as unnofficial outdoor graffiti galleries.

[Bottom Left] “Where is Cabral?”

Asks these four figures.

Cabral is a Portuguese nobleman and explorer of myth, credited as the discoverer of Brazil.

[Right] Another mural by Selarón, this one done in 1997, celebrates Brazil’s cultural heritage of football and carnival.

This mural was found near the site of Massimo Bottura’s pop-up soup kitchen, Refettorio Gastromotiva, which recycled ingredients rejected from the athletes village into meals for the homeless.

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D isorde r & P ro g r es s SHIFTING LANDSCAPES

OF

MEDIA AND ACTIVISM in Rio de Janeiro

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“OUR DEMOCRACY IS THREATENED AND WE DON’T HAVE ANYONE TO APPEAL TO. WE CANNOT TRUST THE JUDICIARY, AND MOST OF THE MEDIA IS CORRUPT AND BIASED. HELP US BY REPORTING OUR SITUATION IN YOUR COUNTRY.”

-OcupaMINC flyer These words were printed on a colourful flyer plainly satirising the timeless Olympic logo at OcupaMINC, an occupation held in an abandoned concert hall in Botafogo, in Rio’s South Zone. Activists set up camp in the previously deserted venue and created a space teeming with graffiti and solidarity to challenge social injustice linked to endemic corruption, inequality, and the inescapable Olympic games. One of our local contacts echoed this sentiment, unexpectedly endorsing foreign media coverage in Rio de Janeiro. Local media, we are told, provides selective coverage, absolving institutional neglect and stigmatising favela residents. Exploitative and tied up with state interests, local news does little to inspire confidence, especially for those vulnerable to misrepresentation. Journalists are often reminded that they have no place and no right to narrate the struggles of others. Yet in Rio de Janeiro, the trope that foreign media coverage must be self-serving and opportunistic—and, invariably, appropriating underrepresented voices—jars with reality. Activists thirst for decent coverage of their struggles, and hopes for fair reporting often rest on overseas correspondents.

Our contact Angelica brings foreign journalists deep into the Complexo do Alemão, a vast neighbourhood made up of favelas in Rio’s North Zone, under one condition: no uninspired photos of kids in tatty clothes playing in the sewage, or adolescent traffickers sporting machine guns half their size. A trip inside Alemão’s neighbourhoods showed us that favela residents too can be selective about their coverage. Beatriz* was our resident guide, tasked with getting the green light from the traffickers in charge to take us around the area. Her selling point to the local bosses was that foreign coverage would provide evidence of police brutality in the favelas— we were instructed to exclusively photograph residential areas destroyed by police shoot-outs.

Beatriz directed us to crumbling walls, scarred by gunfire. Colourful graffiti covers houses razed by bullet wounds.

Most residents don’t want their photos taken, and armed teenagers, or ‘soldiers’ as they are referred to, watch over us to ensure we only photograph what’s been authorized. Our interviewees claim local media won’t report on the police brutality, and accuse morro gang members of raiding police-controlled areas and instigating violence. But as we make our way out of the favela, it becomes clear that the damage is concentrated outside of UPP-held areas.

In other favelas, community leaders and activists prefer coverage that looks to the positives instead, such as street art and community action. One thing is clear— no one is interested in zoo-like favela tourism or poverty porn. Favela residents are sick of seeing themselves painted in the foreign and national press as dishevelled and powerless, and tired of seeing their houses— in which they take great pride— painted as ramshackle slums. A research initiative headed

by Catalytic Communities tracking the portrayal of Rio’s favelas in english-language media between 2009 and 2014 found that across the board, “violence and drugs” emerged as a focal point of favela media coverage.1 Other conspicuous topics of interest in anglophone media output included “pacification”, “police”, “World Cup” and “Olympics.”2 Despite increased media interest and broader coverage of favelas, content remained focused on outwardly more “newsworthy” topics.3 Inevitably, this gives credence to the long propagated myth that favelas are hotbeds of disorder and destitution.

* Some names have been changed to protect their identities.

[Left] “Disorder and regression”–-a protester outside Central do Brasil station in Rio’s North Zone subverts Brazil’s flag and its motto, “Order and Progress”. August 21, 2016.

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“God protects this house” [Right] Graffiti covers up the front of a house packed with bullet holes in a neighbourhood in Alemão. This community faced a intimidating walk to the cable car, we were told as we crossed the threshold into the favela.

One side belongs to the UPP, the other to the Commando Vermelho trafficking gang. Neither side dares show face on the 100m straight road that divides the space, unless a confrontation is inevitable.

In over half of the articles tested, no distinction was made between different favelas or their specific location in the sprawling city. With over a thousand favelas scattered throughout Rio, lack of specificity betrays journalists’ limited understanding of diversity in favelas.5 Coverage also tends to include imprecise and unfavourable synonyms for favelas—journalists resort to the words “slum” or “shantytown”, scrambling to accurately describe the phenomenon to foreign audiences.6 The CatComm media analysis report points to another worrying trend: journalists largely focus on their own experiences of favelas, neglecting to include local perspectives.7 RioOnWatch§ takes preventative measures to ensure coverage reflects the diverse lived experiences of favela communities by providing useful contacts—often community leaders, or local activists—for foreign correspondents to reach out to. This contact list points journalists to lesser-known events and initiatives, allowing for diverse and less stigmatising coverage.

Ary Barroso & The Seeds of Resistance The RioOnWatch journalist support list brought us to Flavio, a 73-year old Copacabana native and activist for the Sociedade de Amigos do Parque Ary Barroso** in Rio’s North Zone. Far from the notorious streets of Cidade de Deus (immortalised, for better or worse, in the hit film City of God (2002)) we found ourselves in a local park occupied

by UPP vehicles in Penha Circular, near the UPP occupied favelas of Fé and Sereno. Our journey to Ary Barroso was punctuated by the frequent interjections of Flavio, who swears passionately, telling us where the UPP “can stick it.”

Although not a favela resident, Flavio spends his time campaigning for the development of public spaces, specifically a project to restore the Ary Barroso park, which has functioned as a de-facto HQ and parking lot for the UPP since 2010.

“The trees survive by God—nobody else cares about them” Flavio tells us, showing us around the park. The soil, once thriving with mango trees, has eroded from municipal neglect these days. Volunteers plant their own trees, sowing seeds of resistance and symbolically rejecting the privatisation of this public space. These are the types of stories that RioOnWatch and local leaders want to see in the press—small but significant acts of resistance and community action. One activist campaigning for the restoration of the Ary Barroso saw the institutional neglect as a product of stigmatisation: their neighbourhood was considered by some a “risky” area, highlighting the central authority’s active disinterest in disadvantaged areas near Rio’s peripheries.

Interviewing and interacting with local activists on their home turf also lay bare some of the setbacks to effective action against harmful state interventions: we sat through a clamorous community meeting where it quickly became clear opinions were divided. One committee member, vexed by the meeting’s poor turnout, bluntly told us the greater cause is often eclipsed by lack of unity and leadership. This came a few days after an anti-climactic failed mega-demonstration on August 21st, which made clear the periodic lack of public engagement. Correspondents pitched up outside the Central do Brasil train station in Rio’s North Zone, encircled by soldiers duly stationed for security, anticipating a protest due to exceed 10,000 attendees on Facebook. Only a handful of people showed up, evidencing the lack of organisation (and sometimes lack of will) for mass mobilisation without the presence of a unified leadership in Rio. BBC reporters stationed outside the gates of Central, cameras at the ready, left empty-handed. telling us it wasn’t the first time. Journalist Juliana Barbassa is sceptical of Rio’s potential for effective community action, conceding that although there is a fair amount of community activism surrounding favelas, “the population at large has not stepped up.”8 Part of it, she thinks, is that the bar for governance in Rio is so low. She chalks it up to managing expectations: “People are used to such venality. Their expectations for elected authorities to keep the population’s priorities in mind are so low… there are some people aware that things could have been done better, but even they shrug their shoulders a bit .”9

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ยง RioOnWatch was launched by the NGO Catalytic Communities (CatComm) in 2010 as an online media platform tracking news and favela-related incidents in the lead-up to the 2016 Olympics. ** Society for Friends of the Ary Barroso Park.

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[69] Looking Ahead: Projections for Progress [Left] Activists campaigning for the restoration of Ary Barroso – Flavio, M. Militão, Malena, Rafael, and Batista.

[Bottom] “The Olympics are over!!! Did Brazil Win?” – a protester’s sign mocking the Olympics outside the Central do Brasil station, August 21, 2016.

Juliana seems more optimistic about the future of media coverage, citing that Rio 2016 “pushed the conversation forwards,”10 but not without reservations about the potential for alternative media. Despite characterising Brazilian media “monolithic” and “extremely uncritical” and stressing that “Brazil desperately needs new alternative voices in public debate”, for her, alternative media in Rio lack reach and “are not big enough to make a mark on society at large.”11 The consensus seems that responsible foreign media coverage can fill the vacuum, as national media remains focused on maintaining the status quo, and alt media needs time to mature into a platform big enough to make waves.

Representatives from CatComm are also optimistic: “mainstream media coverage of Rio’s favelas is changing […] a truly positive legacy […] of the 2016 Olympics.”12 RioOnWatch, primarily devised as a platform to track World Cup and Olympic-related abuses in Rio, is set to evolve beyond this original goal: they told us in a Q&A that “the demand from [their] network—favela residents, local and international journalists, researchers, volunteers, and readers—has made it clear that RioOnWatch still has an important role to play going forward.”13 While parachute journalism largely dominated foreign media coverage and national media eulogised the games, hours of interviews and encounters with priests, professors, activists and artists reminded us to keep our perspective dynamic and to eschew disempowering and reductionist half-truths. Coverage is slowly becoming less stigmatising and more comprehensive, and Rio’s experience with MSEs has brought development and human rights issues related to the Olympics into the fore. Media activism in Brazil is creating counterpublic discourses and platforms to resist state interference at the public’s expense. Increasingly, media is used as an instrument to “publicly organize diverse forms of political activities.”14 Social media specifically allows residents to track and document human rights abuses like removals, police brutality and state corruption. Ethical and inclusive media coverage, in tandem with effective community action, can subvert dominant discourses and destabilise top-down policies—Rio has not yet reckoned with its Olympic legacy.

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[Left, top and bottom] The Volunteers for the Arvore Seca crêche came from many different backgrounds and disciplines, from academia to the Catholic Church of Rio. [Top] The SuperVia aboveground metro line was essential to our travels to the North Zone, as it connected Bonsuccesso, Penha Circular, and Engenho Novo,

the three stations we used to reach Alemão, the Ary Barroso park, and Arvore Seca. A new extension to the rail service, Linha 2, was added to increase connectivity to Maracaña and to extend the rail line further into the North Zone.

Bibliography

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All photos, interviews, and essays:

Cai John [CJ]

Paola Tenconi [PT]

Ross Devlin [RD] Graphic design and cover: Ross Devlin

front

We relied on statistics from the Instituto Brasiliano de Geografia e Statisticas (IBGE), the Rio Military Police / UPP, and CatComm/Rio On Watch. We also cited research from the dissertation “Ordem en Progresso” by Ross Devlin, available from the University of Edinburgh.

1.2 [PT]

1.

World Cup and Olympics Popular Committee of Rio de Janeiro. “Mega-Events and Human Rights Violations in Rio de Janeiro Dossier.” (2015)

Map made using Tableau

1.3 [RD]

1. Glenny (2014). “Nemesis: One Man and The Battle For Rio.” Anansi International 2. Perlman (2010). “Favela”.

Oxford Unviversity Press & Perlman (1979). “The Myth of Marginality”.

3. Perlman (2010).

4. IBGE. 5. Perlman (2010).

6. UN (2016). “Bringing the State Back Into The Favela”.

7. UPP.rj.

8. IBGE. 9. Rekow (2014). “Pacification & Mega-events in Rio de Janeiro: Urbanization, Public Security, and Accumulation of Dispossession.” Journal of Human Security.

2.1 [RD]

1. IOC. (2016) “Olympic Games Official Framework” and “Official Olympic Charter”.

2. Ibid.

3. Jewish Virtual Library. “The Nazi Olympics”.

2.2 [PT]

1. Gaffney (2010) “Mega-events and socio-spatial dynamics in Rio de Janeiro, 1919-2010”.

Journal of Latin American Geography, 9(1).

2. Ibid.

3.

Interview with Juliana Barbassa by Paola Tenconi, 19 September 2016.

4.

Barbassa (2016) “Rio’s Olympic Gamble.” Playthegame. org 5. Schausteck de Almeida & Bastos (2016). “Displacement and Gentrification in the ‘City of Exception’: Rio de Janeiro Towards the 2016 Olympic Games,” Journal of Sport Science and Physical Education Bulletin No 70.

6. World Cup and Olympics Popular Committee of Rio de

Janeiro (2015). “Mega-Events and Human Rights Violations in Rio de Janeiro Dossier”.

7. Popular Committee (2015).

8.

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2016).

“Brazil: Olympic Games preparations displace thousands in Rio de Janeiro”. Global Report on International Displacement.

9. Woods (2015). “The Damage from Mega-Sporting Events in Brazil”.

Progressive Plan, summer.

10. Popular Committee (2015).

11. Ibid.

12. Gaffney (2010).

13. Barbassa Interview.

14. Popular Committee (2015).

15. Candidature File for Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games (2016) p.23 16. Woods (2015).

17. IDMC 18. Gaffney (2015).

19. Ibid.

20. Schausteck de Almeida & Bastos (2016).

21. Gaffney (2015).

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. Popular Committee (2015).

25. Ibid.

26. Gaffney (2015).

27. Ibid.

3.1 [RD]

[cara] 1. Rio 2016 online.

2. Flyberg and Stewart (2012).

“Olympic Proportions: Cost and Cost Overrun at the Olympics 1960-2012”.

Saïd Business School Working Papers. June 2012.

3. Charner & Darlington (2017).

“Why the legendary Maracana Stadium now looks like a ghost town”. CNN. online.

4. Flyberg and Stewart (2012).

5. Ibid.

6.

Rio On Watch (2015).

“Timeline: Vila Autódromo, Story of Resistance”. rioonwatch.org 6. CatComm. (2012). “Rio Housing

Law”. catcomm.org/law-housing/ Art Interventions used with the permission of Fabio Carvalho.

[Otro cara - Introduction by Ross Devlin] 1. Deford (2012). “The Little Known History of How The Modern Olympics Got Their Start.”

Smithsonian Magazine online.

[Otro cara - “Growing up in Macho Rio” by Fabio Carvalho.]

2. Whitehead (2002). “Men and Masculinities”. Blackwell Publishers, Malden, MA. 3. Brake & Grossman (2013).

“Playing “Too Womany” and the Problem of Masculinity in Sport”. verdict.justicia.com.

3.3 [CJ]

translation by Annabel Britton.

4.1 [PT]

1.

Catalytic Communities (CatComm). Favelas in the media: shiting public perception, 2009-2014. catcomm.org (2015).

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Julianna Barbassa interview 9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. CatComm (2015).

13.

Cerianne Robertson (CatComm).

Q&A with Paola Tenconi, 10 November 2016.

14. Leonardo Custódio. “Favela Media Activism and Its Legacy for Civic Engagement in the Olympic City of Rio de Janeiro”. rioonwatch.org (2015).

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Acknowledgements

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In the course of this project, we pushed our individual limits to read papers, parse statistics, make phone calls, navigate urban bedlam, stay up late, wake up early, make new friends, detect bullshit, embrace uncertainty, commit to the long term, plan for the short term, hustle down to the wire, and understand new languages and new perspectives.

That being said, Morro Asfalto Mar was a community effort, and we benefited greatly from the assistance of

friends, family, and passionate individuals who were enthusiastic about our cause.

Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Tableau, and countless academic paper archives.

We would like to thank...

Gabriela, Bianca, Fábio, Flavio, Mr Militao, Angelica, and Phil for meeting us in Rio and aiding our research, especially in the communities of Engenho Novo, Arvore Seca, and Alemão. And Juliana Barbassa and the RioOnWatch/CatComm staff for comments and support.

the University of Edinburgh Principal’s Go Abroad Fund and the Innovative Initiative Grant, Roger and Maria Wood, and Mike Watts of the University of Edinburgh School of Economics for funding this project, facilitating our stay in Rio, and giving us advice. We also used many resources provided to us by the University, namely: Adobe Indesign,

Amari, Giles advice

Abdullah, and for giving us about people

to talk to, even if these meetings never quite transpired. John Lekberg, for helping us with Tableau.

Finally. Maria, Bruna, Luis, and Fábio for making us feel at home, and showing us a truly Marvelous City!

This book uses OVERPASS MONO and RALEWAY for titles, as well as GARAMOND and COURIER NEW for body text. photo: Maria Wood in her Leme apartment, wearing her trademark sunglasses.

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