Global Girl

Click on the picture to read Bruno Agostini's experience on the favela tour.

The Debate Surrounding Favela Tourism:

In one of his articles, Bryan McCann tells a joke, generally used to refer to Eskimo communities, about Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.  Favelas historically referred to the illegal squatter settlements that emerged on the hills in Rio de Janeiro in the twentieth century. Currently, the term favela is used throughout Brazil referring to poorer areas of any terrain containing self-constructed homes on land that had been illegally invaded. Returning to McCann’s insight, the joke goes: Question: how many people are in the typical home in the favela? Answer: Five—a mother, father, two kids, and an anthropologist.

The growing attention to the favelas worldwide has affected their development as their problems have entered the international arena. Anthropologists are not alone in wanting to experience the favela for themselves. Tourists have begun to venture into the favelas in order to get a chance to experience what life is like for the 19% of Rio de Janeiro’s population living in these regions, and tourism agencies have responded creating a whole industry focused on showing the tourists the favelas–or the “real Rio” as the agencies would say.

Favela tourism sparked an intense debate: Some see the favela tours as an opportunity to make people aware of the world’s problems; other people claim that the favela tours are exploitative and represent a “safari of poverty” that invades the personal lives of the poor. The tourism agencies claim the goal of breaking the stereotypes that exclude the favela thus integrating them into the city of Rio de Janeiro. What aspects of poverty tourism spark much more debate and interest than traditional tourism? In all tourism outside people enter the space of another culture, however, poverty tourism creates a deeper and more polemic dynamic due to the nature of marginality that poor people often face.

Tourism creates a vulnerable relationship between locals and tourists due to the mere nature of the development of tourism in a marginalized area.  Within this framework do mainstream tourism agencies carry out favela tourism in a way that exploits the residents of these areas?

Relationships and Perceptions Occurring Underneath the Packaged Tour:

One has to take into consideration what the current relationships between the people living in the favelas and the people living in “official” neighborhoods (these terms are used loosely), and then see how tourism plays out with these relationships. How does the tourism affect the preexisting stereotypes of residents of these poorer territories? How do the images passed on by the media and films like City of God and Tropa de Elite affect these tours and play a role in creating a consumer item out of the favelas?

Not many would take a tour that obviously exploited poor people, and so what are the ways that the favela tours transcend the image that they are “slumming” tours that exploit of the poor in order to sell a buck? Well, generally the tours claim to show a “real view of Rio de Janeiro, one that can’t by normal tourists. After researching a lot of the mainstream tours, I believe that many mainstream favela tourism agencies have not revealed any “truths” about the favela but instead reduced it to hegemonic images.

“Truth” or Packaged Myths? – The Two Sided Coin of Favela Stereotypes:

These tours trap the favela under two strong stereotypes, that although seem very contradictory, actually work together to marginalize the lives of those living in the favelas : The first is the images of violence that perpetually define the favelas and draw a picture of the favelas as a “world apart” dominated by “parallel powers,” and the second is the need to break the stereotype that life in the favela is always violent. Luiz Antonio Machado da Silva in his book Vida Sob Cerco describes these two  factors as the two sides of a coin that together form a gate that traps the lives of those living in the favelas.

If you understand Portuguese, here is a part that describes this two sided coin. Yes, it is long but Brazilian intellectuals seem to go by the rule, “the more wordy and harder to understand the better the work. I tried to cut it down as much as I could…) Luiz Antonio Machado da Silva states:

“Duas hipóteses interdependentes, que constituem os dois lados das mesma moeda…A primeira é que o mencionado confinamento geográfico e simbólico deriva em concepção de “mundos à parte” e dificulta de modo significativo o ‘desencaixe,’ que ‘retire a atividade social dos contextos localizados, reorganizando as relações sociais através de grandes distâncias tempo-espaciais’…No Rio de Janeiro das últimas décadas a escalada de confrontos armados entre bandos de traficantes que quase sempre têm como palco os territórios da pobreza, sugere que, concetradas nesses locais (mas se espraiando por toda a cidade) a tendencias [de controle sob atos muito violentos]. E Sugere também que a truculência (além da corrupção) policial se relaciona com a delegação das camadas mais abastadas para que a corporação realize, a qualquer custo e sem controle público, o esperado afastamento das “novas classes perigosas” em que se constituem atualmente os moradores dos territórios da pobreza…

A segunda hipótese ida com o ‘outra lado’ da primeira: à medida que escasseia aquele mínimo de confiança indispensável para a contiunadade regular das rotinas cotidianas sobre as quais se assenta o conflito social e o debate público, os moradores dos territórios de pobreza têm sido sistematicamente afastados do convívio social e suas vozes deixam de ser ouvidas. Isto implicou, como é óbvio, a atenção do grupo de pesquisadores à sociabilidade nas áres expostas aos dispositivos de confinamento. Practicamente todos os textos analizam desde difertentes ângulos, os esforços de ‘limpeza simbólica’ que se tornaram necessários como condição de acesso ao debate público sobre a vida no Rio de Janeiro.”

Although this says "Copacabana," Rocinha is not located in Copacabana.

In my opinion, I believe that the larger more marketed main stream companies utilize both these stereotypes taking advantage of whichever one is beneficial at the time in order to please their clients. Is it possible for an industry that generates an one size fits all image of the favela to not objectify those living in the areas?  After examining many reactions of tourists who have taken part in these tours, it is obvious that these companies sell the “parallel power” image of Rio de Janeiro, but as most academics have come to find out, Rio de Janeiro works more like a intrinsic web of networks that work together to keep both traffickers and the state in power. (See: Arias, and Machado da Silva)

Complexities of the favela make it hard to market, sell and experience the favela in one fluid movement that lures the tourist in and then drops them off at the comforts of their hotels at the end of the day. If locals want tourism in these areas, they will need to take an active role in the tourism and make sure their voices are heard and interests are met. They will also have to accept the existing trade-offs and know the consequences of the tourism industry on a community.

One Favela Tourism Agency Busted for Offering Tourists Picture Opportunities with Traffickers and Weapons:

This news article, Passeio em Favela Investigado, gives me less hope that favela tours can act in a way that really does “show the real Rio” and benefit the people who live in the favelas. One favela tour company got in trouble after a reporter from Folha de São Paulo went undercover on one tour and found that the tourism agency was offering the tourists to take pictures with the traffickers and they could even accompany the little kids to deliver drugs to the cars of the purchasers. Obviously, violence and drugs sell and favela tours are businesses.

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I have to end with two avisos:

1) I have never personally taken part of these tours. I haven’t been able to get up the stomach to actually make the launch and take part, although I would like to formulate my own opinions after actually taking part in one. The perspectives that I have written about come from blogs of tourists who have taken part in the tour and from academics that have done research on the tours.

2) The “mestre,” most well informed master, academic of favela tours is Bianca Freire-Medeiros. She works at Fundação Getúlio Vargas and has recently released a book. I have not yet had the pleasure to read this book, but based on her articles about Favela Tourism, I am sure it is very insightful and interesting. If you are a tourist dying to take the tour, perhaps you should read some articles or this book beforehand in order to be more aware of the fundamental dynamics playing out underneath the idea of the tours, “revealing the real Rio.” It is in Portuguese, and it is called Gringo na Laje. Laje is the word for a flat cement rooftop where the tourists go to get the views from the favelas.

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