Metropolitics

Marielle Franco and the Fight for the City Statute in Rio de Janeiro

Ty Redden — 2025-02-14T06:00:00Z

Marielle Franco's 2018 assassination roiled social media and sent shockwaves through activist communities. The subsequent investigation revealed that her death was a part of a larger land-grabbing plot enacted by militias and enabled by local politicians. This case study explores the City Statute and its relationship to housing struggles—particularly, how the City Statute has forged a brutal partnership of oppression in Rio de Janeiro's most vulnerable neighborhoods.
---- Series: Horizons in

- Essays / Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, militias, favela, informal settlements, local politics, politics, race, gender, activism

The Brazilian Experience of Financialization Through Urban Redevelopment: The Case of “Urban Operations”

Laisa Eleonora Marostica Stroher — 2020-12-01T06:00:00Z

Laisa Stroher examines the history of large-scale urban regeneration projects in Brazil and shows how a policy instrument initially designed to respond to a lack of public funding has morphed into a tool that has helped transform urban land into a financial asset, leading ultimately to the displacement of populations without delivering on the initial social promises.
---- Series: Cities in the Age of Financialization Large-scale urban development projects and their contradictions feature

- From the Field / financialization, urban regeneration, urban development, Urban Operations (Brazil), Brazil, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, redevelopment, urban planning, real estate, Latin America, South America, displacement

Rio de Janeiro: Storms, Militia, and Urban Development

Leandro Benmergui & Rafael Soares Gonçalves & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-11-08T06:00:00Z

The dramatic consequences of storms at the beginning of 2019 in a favela in Rio de Janeiro reveal the ongoing evolution of informal urbanization in the city. The development of militias, as a result of security problems and the withdrawal of public authorities in these neighborhoods, also affects building construction. Leandro Benmergui and Rafael Soares Gonçalves highlight the dangers of these developments.
At the beginning of 2019, in Rio de Janeiro, two violent storms caused a significant

- From the Field / Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, favela, militias, informal housing, vulnerable housing, informality, precarity, catastrophe, disaster, Latin America, safety

Rio de Janeiro: An (Inequitably) Connected City?

Francesca Pilo' & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-09-21T05:00:00Z

The tangled webs of electrical wires, a symbol of the favelas, are also the sign of an electricity service that remains profoundly unequal and uncertain in Brazilian cities. Francesca Pilo' considers the varying quality of electricity distribution in Rio de Janeiro, and shows how this network contributes to dynamics of urban fragmentation that go beyond the simple dichotomy between shanty towns and prosperous neighborhoods.
Despite the universal nature of electricity provision, in terms of

- From the Field / inequalities, energy, networks, utilities, urban public service, Global South, socio-spatial inequalities, Latin America, Brazil, favela, Rio de Janeiro, urban technical networks, electricity, social division of space, fragmentation, service provision, distribution, urban services

Marielle Franco and Brazilian Democracy at a Crossroads

Natália Alves & Isabella Gonçalves Miranda & Felipe Magalhães — 2018-06-26T05:00:00Z

Marielle Franco's life and death raised questions about the limits of Brazil's New Republic. It revealed the rising stakes, particularly for women and people of color, following the 2016 coup. In this piece, urban activists Isabella Gonçalves and Natália Alves and geographer Felipe Magalhães place Franco's embodied politics as a direct challenge to the regressive policies and aggressive austerity of the current regime.
We live in times when a culture of violence is a vocal minority of the

- From the Field / social movement, security, violence, corruption, neoliberalism, Latin America, Brazil, LGBTQ+, feminism, activism, Rio de Janeiro, queer, critical racial awareness, austerity, militias, queer theory, state violence, coup

You Can't Kill Marielle

Meg Stalcup & Erika Robb Larkins — 2018-05-29T05:00:00Z

Marielle Franco was part of a new generation of progressive activists in Brazilian politics. She was assassinated point-blank on March 14, 2018 by an elite shooter. In this piece, Meg Stalcup and Erika Robb Larkins examine how Marielle's death is revealing of the issues that she fought for in her life. They also ask how she continues to be present in and beyond the unfolding investigation into who killed her.
Violence marked Brazil's 2018 elections, by many accounts the most polarized in the

- From the Field / social movement, security, progressive urban politics, corruption, Latin America, Brazil, activism, Rio de Janeiro, militias, progressive activism