Between Shocks and Finance: Pacification and the Integration of the Favela into the City in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This article analyzes the strategies of “integrating” the favelas into the city in Rio de Janeiro through state enforcement and an expansion of financial measures. In a new arrangement of the public-private dichotomy, Pacifying Police Units (Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora; UPPs) and the “shock of administrative order” (Choque de Ordem) policy have been joined with new financial mechanisms to ensure the governance of favela territories. This essay argues, however, that the large protests that started in Brazil in June 2013 compose a terrain of contestation and alternatives based on the constitution of the common.