Favelas for Sale
This chapter analyzes the short-story “Maria Déia” written by Lia Vieira, which traces the story of some residents who were evicted from Morro de Santo Antonio in the 1950s. It also examines the video ImPACtos produced in 2010 by the collective multimedia group Favela em Foco. These two cultural productions enable us to trace a series of discourses/modes of representation that have been used to legitimize and justify urban interventions. This chapter examines the way both cultural productions challenge the recurring, dominant representations of favelas as a space of otherness and/or spectacles of consumption. The chapter illustrates how these cultural productions allow us to understand that these urban interventions are not simply a dispute over the control of a territory, but are part of the continuing struggle over the meanings and boundaries vis-à-vis conflicting views of citizenship and belonging.