Rocinha is the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro.

Favela do Vidigal in Rio de Janeiro

A favela (Portuguese pronunciation: [faˈvɛlɐ]) is the generally used term for a shanty town in Brazil. In the late 18th century, the first settlements were called bairros africanos (African neighbourhoods). This was the place where former slaves with no land ownership and no options for work lived. Over the years, many freed black slaves moved in.

Even before the first "favela" came into being, poor citizens were pushed away from downtown and forced to live in the far suburbs. However, most modern favelas appeared in the 1970s, due to rural exodus, when many people left rural areas of Brazil and moved to cities. Without finding a place to live, many people ended up in a favela ^[1]. Census data released in December 2011 by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) shows that in 2010, about (6%) of the population lived in slums in Brazil^[2]. It means that 11.4 million of the 190 million people lived in the country areas of irregular occupation and lack of public services or urbanization, referred to by the IBGE as "subnormal agglomerations".

History[link]

U.S. president Barack Obama in the Favela Cidade de Deus in Rio de Janeiro

Former Favela in Porto Alegre

Favela Casa Amarela in Recife

The original favela was erected on the Morro de Castelo in Rio de Janeiro by the families of soldiers returning from the Canudos Campaign^[3]

The term favela was coined in the late 1800s^[4]. At the time, 20,000 veteran soldiers were brought from the conflict against the settlers of Canudos, in the Eastern province of Bahia, to Rio de Janeiro and left with no place to live.^[5] When they served the army in Bahia, those soldiers had been familiar with Canudos's Favela Hill — a name referring to favela, a skin-irritating tree in the spurge family indigenous to Bahia, ^[6] Cnidoscolus quercifolius. When they settled in the Providência [Providence] hill in Rio de Janeiro, they nicknamed the place Favela hill from their common reference, thereby calling a slum a favela for the first time^[7]

The favelas were formed prior to the dense occupation of cities and the domination of real estate interests.^[8] The first recorded favela was in the early 1920's. The housing crisis of the 1940s forced the urban poor to erect hundreds of shantytowns in the suburbs, when favelas replaced tenements as the main type of residence for destitute cariocas (residents of Rio). The explosive era of favela growth dates from the 1940s, when Getúlio Vargas's industrialization drive pulled hundreds of thousands of migrants into the Federal District, until 1970, when shantytowns expanded beyond urban Rio and into the metropolitan periphery.^[9] Most of the current favelas began in the 1970s, as a construction boom in the more affluent districts of Rio de Janeiro initiated a rural exodus of workers from poorer states in Brazil. Since favelas have been created under different terms but with similar end results^[10], the term favela has become generally interchangeable with any impoverished area.

Favelas are built around the edge of the main city, so in a way, they are actually expanding the city. Communities form in favelas over time and often develop an array of social and religious organizations and forming associations to obtain such services as running water and electricity. Sometimes the residents (favelados) manage to gain title to the land and then are able to improve their homes. Because of crowding, unsanitary conditions, poor nutrition, and pollution, disease is rampant in the poorer favelas, and infant mortality rates are high.

Public policy towards favelas[link]

A view from a lookout of Santa Teresa of a hillside slum (right) in Rio de Janeiro, contrasted with a more affluent neighbourhood (left). The Cristo Redentor, shrouded in clouds, is in the left background.

The explosive growth of favelas triggered government removal campaigns. Police have little or no control in many favelas. A programme in the 1940s called Parque Proletário destroyed the original homes of those dwelling in favelas in Rio and relocated them to temporary housing as they waited for the building of public housing.^[14]

Eventually little public housing was built and the land that was cleared for it just became reoccupied with new settlements of favela dwellers. In 1955, Dom Hélder Câmara, Archbishop of Recife and Auxiliary Bishop of Rio de Janeiro, launched the Cruzada São Sebastião (St. Sebastian's Crusade), a federally financed project to build an apartment complex in the biggest favela at the time, Praia do Pinto. The goal of the Cruzada was to transform favela dwellers into more acceptable citizens by only housing those willing to give up the vices associated with favela life. One was in Praia do Pinto and the other in the favela of Rádio Nacional in Parada de Lucas.^[15]

Removal programs of the favelas flourished once again in the 1970s under the military dictatorship, disguised as a government housing program for the poor. What really happened was that more favelas were eliminated and their residents were displaced to urban territory lacking basic infrastructure.^[8] The idea was to eliminate the physical existence of favelas by taking advantage of the cheaper prices of suburban land. The favela eradication programme became paralyzed eventually because of the resistance of those who were supposed to benefit from the programme and a distribution of income did not permit the poor to assume the economic burden of public housing that was placed on them.^[16]

Recent developments[link]

In 1995, the Comitê para Democratização da Informática (now part of the Center for Digital Inclusion) started computer schools to reduce the digital divide.^[17][18]

In 2007, President Lula announced the Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento, a four-year investment plan, which includes the promotion of urban development for the favelas. There have been public policies aimed at the favelas from local governments. In Rio de Janeiro, programs such as the favela-barrio and Rio cidade have attempted to mitigate the problem.

Formation of favela society[link]

Favela Riacho Fundo in Brasília

The people who live in favelas are known as Moradores da favela, or pejoratively as favelados. Favelas are associated with extreme poverty. Brazil's favelas can be seen as the result of the unequal distribution of wealth in the country. Brazil is one of the most economically unequal countries in the world with the top 10 percent of its population earning 50 percent of the national income and about 8.5 percent of all people living below the poverty line.^[19] The Brazilian government has made several attempts in the 20th century to improve the nation's problem of urban poverty. One way was by the eradication of the favelas and favela dwellers that occurred during the 1970s while Brazil was under military governance. These favela eradication programs forcibly removed over 100,000 residents and placed them in public housing projects or back to the rural areas that many emigrated from.^[20] Another attempt to deal with urban poverty came by way of gentrification. The government sought to upgrade the favelas and integrate them into the inner city with the newly urbanized upper-middle class. As these "upgraded favelas" became more stable, they began to attract members of the lower-middle class pushing the former favela dwellers onto the streets or outside of the urban center and into the suburbs further away from opportunity and economic advancement. For example: in Rio de Janeiro, the vast majority of the homeless population is black, and part of that can be attributed to favela gentrification and displacement of those in extreme poverty.^[21]

Drugs and the favela[link]

Former favela people in a public condominium in São Paulo

The cocaine trade has affected Brazil and in turn its favelas, which tend to be ruled by drug lords. Regular shoot-outs between traffickers and police and other criminals, as well as assorted illegal activities, lead to murder rates in excess of 40 per 100,000 inhabitants in the city of Rio and much higher rates in some Rio favelas.^[22] Traffickers ensure that individual residents can guarantee their own safety through their actions and political connections to them. They do this by maintaining order in the favela and giving and receiving reciprocity and respect, thus creating an environment in which critical segments of the local population feel safe despite continuing high levels of violence.

Drug use is highly concentrated in these areas run by local gangs in each highly populated favela. Drug sales and use run rampant at night when many favelas host their own baile, or dance party, where many different social classes can be found. These drug sales make up "a business that in some of the occupied areas rakes in as much as US$ 150 million per month, according to official estimates released by the Rio media."^[23]

Growth and removal of the favelas[link]

Typical public apartments in São Paulo, of former favela people

Despite the attempts to cleanse Brazil's major cities like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo of favelas, the poor population grew at a rapid pace as well as the modern favelas that house them in the end of last century. This is a phenomenon called "favelização" ("favela growth" or "favelisation"). In 1969, there were approximately 300 favelas in Rio de Janeiro; today there are twice as many.

In 1950, only 7 percent of Rio de Janeiro's population lived in favelas, nowadays this number has grown to 19 percent or about one in five people living in a favela. According to national census data, from 1980–1990, the overall growth rate of Rio de Janeiro dropped by 8 percent, but the favela population increased by 41 percent. After 1990, the city's growth rate leveled at 7 percent, but the favela population increased by 24 percent. However, a report of the United Nations, released in 2010 shows that Brazil has reduced its slum population by 16%, now corresponding to about 6% of the overall population of the nation.^[24]

Current decreases in the population of favelas can, in some ways, be credited to the original reasons of rural to urban migration that, in the last years, has become less attractive once the investments in the rural whole in Brazil has improved the life conditions to rural workers.

Other investments, such as the ones to industries, infrastructure, tourism and social assistance are helping to spread the wealth, developing historic underdeveloped regions (like Northeastern Brazil) and reducing the reasons to migrate to economic cores like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. All of this has added to the fast economic growth Brazil has been experiencing. The poor classes are entering the middle classes and the rate of poverty is vertiginously falling.

In popular culture[link]

Panoramic view of the Favela da Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro

• The 2002 film City of God (Portuguese: Cidade de Deus) takes place in the favela Cidade de Deus in Rio de Janeiro during the 1960s and 70s.
• A favela is featured in the Call of Duty franchise as a mock battleground, in the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It appears in the missions "Takedown" and "The Hornet's Nest".
• A favela is featured as a hostage-rescue map in the game Counter-Strike
• Living in and escaping favela life is a theme of Antônia (2006).
• The 2007 movie, The Elite Squad, (Portuguese: Tropa de Elite), is a semi-fictional account of the BOPE (Portuguese: Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais), the Special Police Operations Battalion of the Rio de Janeiro Military Police, with main action taking place in Rio's favelas.
• The 2008 movie The Incredible Hulk features footage shot in Rocinha.
• The 2010 movie, Elite Squad 2, (Portuguese: Tropa de Elite 2), is a sequence of the semi-fictional account of the BOPE (Portuguese: Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais), the Special Police Operations Battalion of the Rio de Janeiro Military Police, with main action taking place in Rio's favelas.
• The 2011 movie Fast Five features the characters living in Rio's favelas after escaping custody by American forces. Paradoxically, most of Fast Five was filmed in Puerto Rico, only a few scenes were filmed in Rio "Puerto Rico Represents Brazil for Fast Five". News. Ramascreen. http://www.ramascreen.com/puerto-rico-represents-brazil-for-fast-five. Retrieved 20 November 2011. 
• In the 2011 movie Rio some of the scenes take place in the favela. It features the main characters (Blu and Jewel) being kidnapped for illegal wildlife trade and kept deep in one of the many houses in Rio's favelas.
• In the 2012 video game Max Payne 3 some of the levels take place in the favelas of Sao Paulo, with large portions of the game taking place in Brazil.
• The 2012 song Let's Go by Calvin Harris, featuring Ne-Yo. The beginning of the video shows a boy waking up in a favela in Rio.

See also[link]

Brazil portal

Favelas

• List of favelas in Brazil
• Heliópolis
• Rocinha

References[link]