In Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro, Janice Perlman provides a substantial study of life in the 1,020 favelas in Rio de Janeiro. She attempts to relocate and reinterview her previous subjects. Perlman returned to the infamous slums of Rio de Janeiro to follow four generations over 40 years. She has interviewed almost 2,500 people including her subjects’ children and grandchildren. She blends detailed personal testimonies with insightful analyses of the urbanization of poverty, the implications of public policy and the drug trade. She also conveys a deep understanding that favelas are not merely despair-filled slums but communities, in fact, many of the residents have remained there by choice. The central theme in Favela is to provide more information about urban poverty and social mobility. She provides captivating counter perspectives that add hope to what is understood about urban poverty in Latin America. She writes using compassion and personal stories to portray larger topics substantiated with statistical analysis. Perlman’s research has provided proof of an overall improvement in living standards and a surprising increase of upward mobility, especially among families that have fewer children. However, not all of her subjects make their way out of poverty. She discovers many innovative social interventions (by community organizers, nongovernmental organizations, and international agencies) that, if replicated, could have widespread benefits. Perlman worries that the emerging democracies of Latin America have so far failed to fully incorporate their expanding urban populations and produce enough good jobs. But their uplifting reportage from the edge provides solid ground for reasoned optimism. F... ... middle of paper ... ... Given the scope of the study (i.e. a 30-year period, half-a-dozen neighborhoods, thousands of individual lives), the complexity of the object and the lack of recent ethnographic fieldwork, many such findings are not fully explained, but informed conjectures are provided. Favela touches on several topics pertinent to urban scholars, and considering Brazil’s growing economy and changing domestic infrastructure, studies like this one will only become more urgent in coming years. The book does deliver powerful insights into the feelings, drives and prospects of the studied population. In all, Favela gives a sensitive and well-documented view of the world of twenty-first-century urban marginality, and calls for more ‘prolonged involvement’ (p. 339), as Perlman puts it, to match the attitudinal trends established in the surveys with the actors' practices and worldviews.
In Samba, Alma Guillermoprieto describes the Carnival celebrated every year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and explores the black cultural roots from which it takes its traditions as well as its social, economic, and political context in the 1980s. From her firsthand experience and investigation into favela life and the role of samba schools, specifically of Manguiera, Guillermoprieto illustrates a complex image of race relations in Brazil. The hegemonic character of samba culture in Brazil stands as a prevalent theme in numerous facets of favela life, samba schools, and racial interactions like the increasing involvement of white Brazilians in Carnival preparation and the popularity of mulatas with white Brazilians and tourists. Rio de Janeiro’s early development as a city was largely segregated after the practice of slavery ended. The centralization of Afro-Brazilians in favelas in the hills of the city strengthened their ties to black
Carol Stack finds herself in a curious place as a young white woman venturing into a black neighborhood in hopes of alleviating negative stereotypes and bringing illumination into a semiosphere that is altogether ignored or even despised. While she defined her purpose as the attempt to “illustrate the collective adaptations to poverty of men, women, and children within the social-cultural network of the black urban family” (28), her methods are not merely those of an outside observer spouting back information, but truly that of an actively engaged participant. Staying true to the guidelines of participant observation studies, Stack did not attempt to isolate or manipulate the culture she saw, and instead of donning the lab coat, as it were, and playing the role of the experimenting scientist, or simply sneaking in, Stack was very human in her interactions and dealings, participating as actively as possible in peoples’ real lives in The Flats. Hedrick is a. Twenty years ago, Stack sought to explain why the impoverished area was not subject to conventional judgment and evaluation by describing the primary differences between that society, and the more affluent culture that defines the standards. To say, for example, that the average black household is unstructured is a misstatement.
In conducting this assignment we visited the neighborhood of Washington Heights. During our visits we interviewed several of the residences; so that we could get a first hand prospective of what it is like living in the community, why they settled in the community and the many changes that they have witness durning their time in the neighborhood.
In ‘City of God’, Meirelles is attempting to highlight the issues surrounding life in the favelas and the impact that poverty and crime is having on individuals, and ultimately the country as a whole, through his use of themes such as poverty. Similarly, Kassovitz is attempting to highlight the social division between authoritarian
In the favela of São Paulo, Brazil, 1958, Carolina Maria de Jesus rewrote the words of a famous poet, “In this era it is necessary to say: ‘Cry, child. Life is bitter,’” (de Jesus 27). Her sentiments reflected the cruel truth of the favelas, the location where the city’s impoverished inhabited small shacks. Because of housing developments, poor families were pushed to the outskirts of the city into shanty towns. Within the favelas, the infant mortality rate was high, there was no indoor plumbing or electricity, drug lords were governing forces, drug addiction was rampant, and people were starving to death. Child of the Dark, a diary written by Carolina Maria de Jesus from 1955 to 1960, provides a unique view from inside Brazil’s favelas, discussing the perceptions of good
The first images that pop into your head when you think about poverty are the commercials on TV with the “In the arms of an Angel” song casting pictures and videos of kids in Africa, starving to death. It is all heartbreaking to imagine, but it does not mention that every year, developing countries are robbed of more than one trillion dollars that could fight poverty. disease and hunger. Gordon Parks’ distinguished way of capturing poverty in Rio de Janeiro, as mentioned in the Journal Entry “Flavio's Home,” is a great way to demonstrate the struggles of families in poverty . Photos taken by Parks made it on Life magazine which were originally based on his autobiography Voices in the Mirror in the 1990s to inform the inconsiderate rich about
Nancy Scheper- Hughes (1990) contributes an ethnographic study in the shantytown Alto do Cruzeiro of Northern Brazil including interviews, and first hand engagement in households of mothers with newborn infants. The author lived in the city and worked as community health worker (house-caller), as well as attending cultural circles organized by U.P.A.C. (Union for the Progress of Alto do Cruzeiro). Members of this union were used as key informants, research subjects, and assistants. Scheper- Hughes’ theological and methodological approach was derived from critical or Marxist phenomenology. Szwarcwald (2000) uses a geographical information system (GIS) to link mortality data and population census data, which allowed the establishment of the geographical
Sally Engle Merry’s “Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers” explores the urban danger associated with living in a neighborhood with “strangers.” The ethnographic study centralizes around a multiethnic housing project in a neighborhood with high crime; Dover Square Project. She emphasizes the relevance of social groups and the impact it maintains in promoting the idea of danger in urbanities. Merry focuses her attention on the impression the residents’ have, which is “that they live in a world of dangerous and unpredictable strangers” and the contrasting reality. Throughout the article, she clarifies this misconception and explores how the boundaries between the ethnic groups promote anonymity, which then in response fosters opportunities for
he City of God film accurately depicts the brutality and desperation of life in the Favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. The City of God favela is one that began as a living community for poorer people in the early 1960’s and within 10 years decayed into a violent, filthy neighborhood controlled by drug lords. (Arias and Rodrigues, 2006) A favela is another name for a shanty town found in urban areas in Brazil. The favelas in Brazil are crowded and violent; in the film you really see how the people in these neighborhoods live. The clothes that people wear are ragged and old; some kids are seen running around without shoes on through the streets, pushing aside people and animals. The houses seem to have layers of dirt on them and dust from the constant commotion pervades the air. The film authentically portrays the squalor people actually live in. In one scene you see
To watch City of God is to be forced to enter, from a safe distance, the ruthless and merciless hoods of Rio de Janeiro. The captivating and poignant film guides viewers through the realistic aspects of slum life experienced by young, underprivileged youth in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, some aspects that not even most middle class Brazilians get to see. In a city where police are fraudulent, opportunities are scarce and crime is widespread, many youths believe there is no alternative to gang activity. In City of God, director Fernando Meirelles puts to the forefront of Brazilian cinema the real issues that favelas in Brazil face like poverty, extreme violence and stereotypical gender roles in a male dominated society. City of God encapsulates the hope of Rio’s impoverished blacks for social and economic ascension.
Older, Daniel Jose. “Gentrification’s Insidious Violence: The Truth About American Cities.” Salon. Salon, 8 April 2014. Web. 19 May 2014.
The problems of race and urban poverty remain pressing challenges which the United States has yet to address. Changes in the global economy, technology, and race relations during the last 30 years have necessitated new and innovative analyses and policy responses. A common thread which weaves throughout many of the studies reviewed here is the dynamics of migration. In When Work Disappears, immigrants provide comparative data with which to highlight the problems of ghetto poverty affecting blacks. In No Shame in My Game, Puerto Rican and Dominican immigrants are part of the changing demographics in Harlem. In Canarsie, the possible migration of blacks into a working/middle-class neighborhood prompts conservative backlash from a traditionally liberal community. In Streetwise, the migration of yuppies as a result of gentrification, and the movement of nearby-ghetto blacks into these urban renewal sites also invoke fear of crime and neighborhood devaluation among the gentrifying community. Not only is migration a common thread, but the persistence of poverty, despite the current economic boom, is the cornerstone of all these works. Poverty, complicated by the dynamics of race in America, call for universalistic policy strategies, some of which are articulated in Poor Support and The War Against the Poor.
In the second chapter of the book "Planet of Slums," Mike Davis seeks to answer what characteristics and types of slums are prevalent in different parts of the world. Davis continues his startled, alarmed, disgruntled and depressing tone from the previous chapter. Overall, the chapter is divided into two parts. The first part attempts to explore and examine the global slum census, and the other part describes the various slum typologies
These programmes exhibit considerable diversity in terms of objectives and programme design. They can take the form of pure income transfers, like in the case of South Africa’s Child Support Grant, whereas other countries have adopted a different approach consisting in linking income transfers with basic service provision. For example, Mexico’s Oportunidades (previously known as Progresa), and Brazil’s Bolsa Familia, which provides income transfers to poor households on condition that they regularly send their children to school and that household members attend health clinics. In fewer countries, like in the case of Chile Solidario, income transfers are combined with a wide range of interventions in health, education, employment, and housing. Our focus on social protection programmes directly focusing on childr...
Shanty towns, as Google defines them, are deprived areas on the outskirts of cities consisting of large numbers of crude dwellings. There is already a countless number of shantytowns around the world, but that number is growing. The main reason why families are moving into shantytowns is economic opportunities…“The driving force behind these migrations is the abundance of jobs in the cities” (Teghrarian, 1997). People, in hopes of pursuing a new career and making money for their family, often resort to these shantytowns for a temporary living space, but soon find out it’s too hard to leave (Painting with appositives). The families that populate shantytowns often work harder than the average citizen, but are forced to live in dirt and tents,