Pacification & mega-events in Rio de Janeiro: Urbanization, public security & accumulation by dispossession

Abstract

This paper outlines how Brazil’s latest public security initiative—its highly controversial Police Pacification Campaign (UPP)—is an integral component of a neoliberal political framework that is enacting rapid urbanization projects in and around strategically located favelas (informal settlements or slums) of Rio de Janeiro. Specifically, it evaluates what kinds of economic development initiatives are moving forward, how they are facilitated by the UPP, how they connect to the city’s mega-events, and who is profiting from them. The article also examines how the pacification has affected residents in three favelas over a seven-year period from the inauguration of the UPP in 2008 through to mid-2015.