Advisor: Maria Fernanda Lemos
Dissertation: “All The Worlds. Only One World. Mare, a City in Itself”: Violence, Public Spaces and Urban Intervention
Defense date: 29/08/2019
Abstract
This thesis looks at the issue of cities and favelas in the context of the
urbanization in Rio de Janeiro, focusing on the relationship between violence,
public space and urban intervention in the process of the production of the
metropolitan area of the city. In particular, it seeks to understand how this
relationship takes place in the favelas, often represented as locations lacking civility
and urbanity. This study was developed in the field of urban studies, proposing a
critical perspective on intervention projects that aim at integrating the city and
popular spaces. In a way, such a conception of integration builds on the assumption
that there is a separation between the city and the favela. A question crucial to the
research emerges precisely in this context: to what extent do urban interventions in
the favelas, based on the assumption that favelas should be integrated into the city,
end up reaffirming a notion of separation between those spaces? In terms of
methodology, this research takes up a qualitative research, including methods of
content analysis based on a literature review and document analyses. As a case-
study, it seeks to develop an in-depth investigation of the Mare complex of favela,
which over the last decades has been undergoing multiple urban interventions under
the justification of being integrated into the city of Rio de Janeiro. The main
conclusion of the work is that the residents of the favela have their relationship with
the public space of the entire city banned or significantly affected due to the
violence.