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In Brazil, to speak of the ‘suburb’ is to evoke a rhetoric of need and subordination, and in Rio de Janeiro this is even more the case because, there, ‘suburb’ tends to connote something very different from the usually upper- or middle-class neighbourhoods the same term brings to mind, say, in the United States. This is because, in general, in wealthier countries the term mostly connotes affluence and ‘white flights’, while in the Global South it can include both such wealthier areas and the largely impoverished peripheries. This is very much the case in Rio: to live in a ‘suburb’, there, tends to mean that one comes from a poorer background and needs to content oneself with living far removed from the cultural, social and economic centre of the city inhabited by elites – often, suburbanites spend up to three hours only to get to their jobs, and then the same amount of time to get back home again at the end of a tiresome day.

In this paper, we examine the social stratification in the favelas, urban slums, both in general and how it correlates with technology. The analysis is based on Weberian stratification theory, since it provides for a broad understanding of the different factors that make up the digital inequalities.

Based on a 10-month critical ethnographic research dealing with LAN houses and state supported telecenters in the favelas of Vitória, Brazil, we analyze how the use of technology by residents of such marginalized areas expands our understanding of Weber’s axes of stratification, namely class, status and political power. The data was drawn from user observations, Facebook interactions, and 76 semi-structured interviews.

The drug cartel members belonged to the higher class of favela residents due to their access to material resources and ability to afford smartphones and data plans. However, in terms of status groups, they did not represent the pinnacle of the community. Where status was concerned, the highest stratum of the community was composed of the “Facebook’s celebrities,” the few teenagers who knew how to produce content online, such as images and videos. An additional axis of social differentiation, related to political power, was observed during the 2013 protests in Brazil. Favela residents arrived late to the event and found themselves “fighting” for demands stipulated previously by the organizers who belonged to upper classes.

We highlight what access to ICTs can, and cannot, accomplish in a “highly disorganized,” conflict-ridden, and institution-poor environment. With that we hope to encourage academics and practitioners to do a better job in developing appropriate policies and technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to consider and evaluate three models of favela governance structure to appreciate the full extent of the complexity of legislature faced by favela residents and to thereby determine whether any concrete notion of justice can exist within the favela.

The paper discusses the relative utilities Donna M. Goldstein’s parallel state theory, Enrique Desmond Arias’ model of state-gang mutual penetration and John Rapley’s notion of neo-medievalism through a process of setting them up in dialogue with one another.

The paper finds that the picture of favela governance that emerges through the discussion of the varying theories is one of a delicate equilibrium that depends on a constant process of negotiation and renegotiation and that it is only within this discursive space that any meaningful notion of favela justice can emerge.

The dialogic aspect of the paper creates a new space, between theories, from which a more nuanced notion of the modern favela, and the subtleties of state-gang relations therein, is able to develop.

When observing the work of Brazilian Sociology and Anthropology, it is apparent that the study of childhood, particularly concerning play and toys, has received little attention. A quick evaluation in this area shows that few existing works appear in the fields of Psychology and Education, the first mostly concerned with the psychology of development and the latter with the question of learning.¹

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the characteristics of creative economies in favelas and their potential in terms of social development from a comparison between the theory on creative economy and the characteristics of the initiatives mapped in the Mangueira favelas.

The research was based on qualitative methodology and literature review. The creative economy initiatives were mapped in the territory of Mangueira and semi-structured interviews and questionnaire of closed questions were applied with the representatives of these. The data collected were treated with the content analysis method.

The research mapped 17 initiatives associated with creative economy sectors in the Mangueira favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The initiatives develop cultural and artistic activities that make the young people of the community aware of the history of their families, which promotes the strengthening of social ties and individual empowerment, contributing to local entrepreneurship.

The theory used in Brazil for the elaboration of public policies to promote the creative economy points to the presence of cultural and symbolic aspects in economic activities as resources for the generation of income. However, it is important to understand how this applies in different contexts, which may have or lack certain characteristics of human and physical capital pointed as essential by theory to creative economy promotion.

The results of this research go beyond the theory of creative economy and highlight characteristics of project management and impacts on social development that demonstrate how the dynamics of the creative economy in the Mangueira favelas also represent a case of social innovation using social technology tools.

O estudo tem como objetivo discutir as características na economia criativa em favelas e seu potencial em termos de desenvolvimento social a partir da comparação entre a teoria sobre economia criativa e as características das iniciativas mapeadas na favela da Mangueira.

A pesquisa utilizou ferramentas de metodologia qualitativa e esteve baseado em revisão de literatura. Foram mapeadas as iniciativas de economia criativa no território da Mangueira e realizadas entrevistas semi-estruturadas e um questionário com perguntas fechadas com os responsáveis. Os dados coletados foram tratados com o método de análise de conteúdo.

A pesquisa mapeou 17 iniciativas associadas aos setores da economia criativa na favela da Mangueira, no Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As iniciativas desenvolvem atividades culturais e artísticas que conscientizam os jovens da comunidade sobre a história de suas famílias, o que promove o fortalecimento de laços sociais e a capacitação individual, contribuindo para o empreendedorismo local.

A teoria utilizada no Brasil para a elaboração de políticas públicas de promoção da economia criativa aponta para a presença de aspectos culturais e simbólicos nas atividades econômicas como recursos para a geração de renda. No entanto, é importante entender como isso se aplica em contextos diferentes, que podem ter ou não algumas características do capital humano e físico apontadas como essenciais pela teoria para a promoção da economia criativa.

Os resultados desta pesquisa vão além da teoria da economia criativa e destacam características de gestão de projetos e impactos no desenvolvimento social que demonstram como a dinâmica da economia criativa nas favelas da Mangueira também representa um caso de inovação social utilizando ferramentas de tecnologia social.

After a technocratic period predominating in mobility literature and practice, the rhetoric of participation has been incorporated as a vital condition for the sustainable mobility agenda and, more recently, for achieving transport and mobility justice. Considering the social significance of mobility beyond simple movement and participation as a term that can accommodate a wide range of motivations and implications, this chapter explores the complex interplay of participation and mobility in the global south context. To this end, this study adopts the spaces for participation framework to investigate the multiple roles of participation in urban mobility. With a focus on the Brazilian context, this chapter uncovers the nature, dynamics, and reach of invited and claimed spaces for participation in mobility planning. Using Rio de Janeiro as the case study site, the chapter examines the invited spaces for participation enabled by the city's mobility plan and analyses whether marginalised populations engage with and/or create further spaces for participation. This was achieved through document analysis, online photo-elicitation interviews with residents of Favela Santa Marta as well as semi-structured interviews with municipal government professionals and representatives of non-government organisations involved in the development of Rio's mobility plan. The chapter discusses the interconnectedness or lack of, within invited and claimed spaces for participation and the multiplicity of meanings attributed to participation and mobility by different actors. The chapter closes with a reflection on what this means for participatory mobility planning in Brazil but which may apply to similar regions in the global south.

The purpose of this paper is to indicate how place making and belonging are still largely governed by race in Brazil and South Africa. As such, it engages with debates about the postracial informed by the study of two urban settings that are discernible by their relationship with race issues: Rio de Janeiro’s favelas and Johannesburg’s townships.

The study provides a brief account of post-racial discourses in each country: Brazilian racial democracy and South Africa’s self-imagination as rainbow nation. Subsequently, these two major national self-understandings are probed using data gathered in the fieldwork (participant observation and in-depth interviews) carried out in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas and Johannesburg’s townships between 2013 and 2015.

The main accomplishment of the study is to approach debates about senses of place, understood here as place making and belonging, from the everyday experiences of favela and township inhabitants. The study suggests discrepancies between the racialized senses of place in Brazilian and South African urban milieus and any sort of post-racial rhetoric. Despite the existence of norms and institutions promoting equal rights of citizenship in Brazil and South Africa, place making is still largely encumbered by the legacy of racial domination in both countries.

By adding new evidence to the research on everyday racism, the study explores the mutual influences between senses of place and the persistent patterns of racial segregation in two urban contexts of the global South. Beyond this, it offers a comparative approach that connects micro-level social dynamics and macro-level discourses.

The purpose of this study to shed light on the importance of social media hosted content related to socially-motivated discussions. Moving from the field of communication for development, the research leverages social media as a powerful tool for collecting and analyse peer-to-peer communication towards the conceptualization of eVoices of Unheard. The deep understanding of these conversation can generate recommendations for organizations and governments designing and providing interventions fostering local socio-economic development.

The study presents a large-scale analysis of social media interactions on the topic “#favela” to generate insights into a social network structure, narrative contents and meaning generated.

Structurally, the analysed networks are comparable with those presented in current academic literature; automatic text analysis confirmed the promise of the inner value of communication for development opening the floor to conceptualization of the “eVoices of unheard”, which is the collective and conscious use of social media to mediate community discussions about tangible and intangible issues related to socio-economic development.

Framed within the rise of interactive communication for development this research show that social media an support the notion of voice proposed by Couldry (2010) moving from process (i.e. the recording of the voice) towards value (i.e. the possibility of giving an account of one’s life and its conditions to have an impact on human life and resources) thereby understanding intangible issues related with socio-economic development.

This paper aims to examine volunteer tourism (VT) experiences of three stakeholder groups in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The guiding research question is: how does VT influence marginalized communities from the perspectives of different stakeholders? This study was developed to address a need for further research that critically looks at the social impacts of VT in vulnerable communities and analyze the nature of VT by reviewing concepts related to sustainable tourism and social representation theory (SRT).

Using a phenomenological approach, this study is founded on SRT to understand the lived experiences of VT and the perceptions of its impacts on favela (slum) communities. This paper describes and interprets these meanings with a high degree of depth and richness using interviews, observation and document analysis. The experiences of community residents, voluntourists and non-governmental organization (NGO) staff are considered.

Study findings indicate that the different groups expressed several benefits and obstacles to VT. Voluntourists had a difficult time interpreting what influences VT has in general for the community focusing more inwardly on their personal experiences. Community residents experienced VT differently than the other groups. They identified the most benefits from VT and felt that they had the ability to create representations of themselves and of their community overall. NGOs expressed positive aspects of VT such as more community participation but noted concerns with voluntourists’ commitment.

This study is one of few to consider and compare the VT perceptions of three different stakeholder groups in vulnerable communities.