Favelas and the divided city: mapping silences and calculations in Rio de Janeiro's journalistic cartography

Abstract

This article aims to challenge the widespread consensus that Rio de Janeiro is a divided city by deploying two concepts in critical cartography: cartographic silences and cartographic calculations. As a kind of unconquered territory, a terrae incognitae, favelas were silenced on many of Rio de Janerio's maps over the last century. When these places began to be mapped, and converted to terrae cognitae, power relations often become even more apparent because of the intention to make it legible for purposes of intervention. By analyzing maps published in the mainstream Brazilian press throughout the last century, this article explores how national press often portrays Rio de Janeiro as a city divided between formal neighborhoods, where the state apparatus can ensure the rule of law, and favelas, where parallel politics enforce local forms of governance. In order to disseminate this image of the city, maps can play an important role, locating different urban zones and reinforcing old stereotypes. Despite many studies that focused on both material and embodied forms of state presence within favelas, maps can be an important source of information to understand persistant representations of favelas as excluded and divided places.

Mapping (as) Resistance: Decolonizing↔Indigenizing Journalistic Cartography

“…For example, in an inquiry into disputed Kurdistani political borders, Culcasi (2006) emphasized the socially discursive nature of journalistic maps, which are typically used to provide further information and contextual information for readers regarding a given story. Similarly, Novaes (2014) discussed the impact of journalistic maps on public understanding of geographic demarcations of favelas in Rio de Janeiro. In such contexts, maps have been found to hold significant, often unquestioned power to shape public opinion and perception of salient issues ranging from sovereignty to urbanization.…”

“…Journalistic maps are an arguably underscrutinized element of news media productions that hold considerable power to influence our understanding of cultural, political, and geographical relationships and hierarchies (Culcasi 2006;Novaes 2014). This is particularly true in Indigenous contexts due to the long-standing reciprocal relationships of Indigenous cultures with particular places (Cajete 1994).…”

Classifying Divided Cities: the Need for Geopolitical Perspective?

“…Similar cases could be found in Brazil -Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo (Wolfensohn, 2003). In that sense, there is a possibility that future slums and ghettos within cities will be similar to existing favelas in Rio de Janeiro (Novaes, 2014).…”

Teleféricos na paisagem da “favela” latino-americana: mobilidades e colonialidades

“…Soma-se a presença de corpos não brancos e, assim, paisagem e "raça" tornam-se os dois lados de uma mesma moeda: dados visuais capazes de servir a postulados imagéticos sobre dissonância, inferioridade ou exotismo (Name, 2013, p. 39). Ao longo do tempo, as imagens desta paisagem-tipo da favela estiveram em meio a práticas de exibição e ocultamento: ora de seus atributos "singulares", "vernáculos" ou "autênticos", ora de tudo que nelas representa o indesejável, vexatório e recriminável por ser próprio do subdesenvolvimento e do atraso, mas que por isso mesmo necessariamente está à espera de melhorias urbanas e sociais (Cardoso, 2006;Duno Gottberg, 2010;Freire-Medeiros, 2009Freire-Medeiros e Menezes, 2009e 2016Novaes, 2014;Rodrigues, 2014Rodrigues, e 2017Vitale, 2013;).…”