Paper short abstract:

Using examples of three Rio de Janeiro favelas subjected to state pacification policies, we explore some of the effects the securitisation project has had on favela residents and discuss how old questions of inequality, poverty and public neglect, are resignified into a problem of national security.

Paper long abstract:

With the advent of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, Rio de Janeiro's state government launched a security policy in 2008 specifically targeting the drug business in favelas. This policy is founded on a widespread perception of favelas as poor neighbourhoods that have been transformed into no-go areas by networks of illicit trafficking. The main discursive strategy is to "reclaim" favela territories in order to "reintegrate" their communities and social space into the city. Twenty-two of Rio's favelas are currently in different stages of the pacification project. Some are still going through the secretive intelligence phase of operations; a few have been recently occupied and their residents are trying to come to terms with the imposed changes; and others are experiencing the multiple effects of the implementation of social programmes which follow the militarised occupation and securitisation of the area. We reflect on the various effects of the pacification policies (both military and social) on the residents of pacified favelas. Using three examples, Santa Marta, Vidigal and Chapéu Mangueira, we explore how the different processes of urbanisation are "reintegrating" communities into the city and what kind of citizenship is elaborated through this potentially turbulent process of securitisation. We discuss how the old questions of inequality, poverty and public neglect, are resignified into a problem of national security in the case of Rio de Janeiro's pacification of favelas.