Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the challenges of conducting an engaged and participatory ethnographic research within the context of favelas facing forced eviction in Rio de Janeiro.

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses the challenges of conducting an engaged and participatory ethnographic research within the context of favelas facing forced eviction in Rio de Janeiro. It draws on a year's ethnographic research I conducted in Vila Autódromo, a small favela located in a gentrifying area of Rio. This favela has been recently brought into the limelight due to an ongoing process of demolition and eviction for the construction of Olympic facilities, which will subsequently be turned into a major real-estate development. Within this framework, residents from this community became mainly divided between two groups: those who want to be evicted because of the high compensations and therefore act in favour of the municipality, and those who grounded in moral reasoning insist in remaining in the area despite all the city's efforts. The ethnographic data also illustrates how the latter group used the researcher's film-making equipment and skills to improve the technical quality of their visual campaigns, and what were the outcomes of that to the researcher's positionality in the field. The paper will contribute to debates on the complex relationship between activism and ethnographic engagement, highlighting the different roles anthropologists can play within contexts of resistance against state violence in Rio's favelas.