Resisting numbers: The favela as an (un)quantifiable reality

Abstract

Large numbers, state statistics, are produced along an extensive chain of transformations in which a particular kind of entity is created: statistical realities. The article analyses a specific reality, the favela, based on various resistances to its quantification. I show these resistances do not interdict the production of numbers but, on the contrary, they are mobilizers, participating in the creation of the necessary agreements to the construction of entities considered real. I also demonstrate, for the favelas, the relationship between the two meanings of normality at play in statistics: what is recurrent and what is considered desirable and healthy.