The Brazilian federal government views tourism in the favelas with great appreciation. The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has launched a program to further integrate tourism into the structure of the economy of the favelas. The Rio Top Tour project, inaugurated in August 2010, promotes tourism in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. From Santa Marta, a favela of about 5,000 cariocas, federal aid was administered to revive the tourism industry. The federal government has allocated 230,000 reais ($145,000) for the project`s efforts in Santa Marta. Signs in English indicating the location of attractions are displayed throughout the community, samba schools are open and observation stations have been built so that tourists can enjoy the view of Rio de Janeiro. Federal and state officials conduct marketing strategies and build information booths for visitors. Residents have also been trained to serve as tour guides and follow the example of existing favela visit programs. [34] More recently, favelas have been introduced in various media forms such as movies and video games. The media representation of favelas has increased people`s interest in favelas as tourist destinations.
[30] Rocinha is the largest favela in Brazil. It is located in the southern area of the city. It is located on a steep slope overlooking the city, just one kilometer from the beach. According to a 2010 census, 70,000 people live here. Unofficial estimates suggest a much larger population of up to 180,000 people. Despite attempts to suppress favelas in major Brazilian cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, the poor population has grown at a rapid pace, as have the modern favelas in which they are housed at the end of the last century. This is a phenomenon called “favelização” (“growth of favelas” or “favelization”). In 1969, there were about 300 favelas in Rio de Janeiro; Today, there are twice as many. This image of the favela was confirmed by architects, social workers and doctors who came to the communities in the early 1900s. In his essays, the favela was described as backward, unhygienic, and hypersexualized. This period was of great importance as it created the image of the favela that would continue to dominate popular representations in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The first, which spans from the early 1900s to the 1940s, predates the development of the social sciences in Brazil. Many descriptions of the favela at that time came in the form of journalistic or historical writings. The most famous example comes from the famous book of Euclides da Cunha “Os Sertões”, which deals with the war of Canudos. Since Cunha`s description of the “coast opposite the hinterland” as a contrast between cultivated and uncultivated is used to explain the difference between “a favela and a cidade” (the favela and the city). Media representations of favelas also serve to disseminate knowledge about favelas and contribute to the growing interest in favelas as a tourist destination. [30] In recent years, favela cultivation has gained popularity as an inspiration for art in other parts of the world. The fascination with life in the favelas is evident in many paintings, photographs and reproductions of favela apartments. [24] There were also cases of European nightclubs inspired by favelas. [24] The Brazilian government made several attempts during the 20th century to improve the problem of urban poverty. One possibility was the extermination of favelas and favela inhabitants that took place in the 1970s, when Brazil was under military rule.
These favela eradication programmes have forced more than 100,000 residents and brought them to social housing projects or rural areas from which many had emigrated. [25] Another attempt to combat urban poverty has been gentrification. The government tried to modernize the favelas and integrate them into the city center with the newly urbanized upper middle class. As these “improved favelas” became more stable, they began to attract members of the lower middle class, pushing former favelas residents onto the streets or out of the urban center and into suburbs further away from opportunities and economic progress. For example: in Rio de Janeiro, the vast majority of the homeless population is black, and this can be attributed in part to the gentrification of the favela and the displacement of people living in extreme poverty. [26] After the “Guerra de Canudos” (War of the Canudos) in Bahia (1895-1896), government soldiers who had lived among the trees of the favela marched to Rio de Janeiro to await payment. They settled on one of Rio`s hills and renamed the hill “Morro da Favela,” after the shrub tree that flourished at the site of their victory over the Canudos rebels. The government never paid and the soldiers never left, and that`s how the first favela was born. But if the favela was occupied by victorious soldiers, how did the negative connotation it has today come about? The development of the (stereotypical) representation of the favela in popular and scientific writings can be divided into four different periods from the early 1900s.
Rocinha is Brazil`s largest favela with an unofficial estimate of 180,000 people living here. Vila Aliança, Penha, Vila Nova and others are located near the city of Rio De Janeiro. There are many settlements near Sao Paolo, as well as those of Heliopolis, Mauro, Campinho and others. The big problem with these big cities and the presence of these settlements is the thriving drug trafficking industry. Not all of them are poor today, and many of them even consider it a matter of pride to live in the places they come from with their respective families. Infant mortality rates are high in the favelas, 50 per 1000 compared to a national rate of 15 per 1000. Due to increased public fear of crime, deep urban segregation has developed (Perlman 2010[9]). Citizens who could afford it withdrew from public spaces in enclaves with private security systems and bulletproof windows. However, the only security option for poor citizens was to turn to drug traffickers who secured their territories with weapons against the state. The “spectacular violence” that followed, when police entered favelas in urban tanks to confront shirtless drug traffickers with weapons of war, was picked up by the media, which adopted the motif for books and film productions. As Erika Robb Larkins argues, the practice of tourism in the favelas is also a commodification of the favela and becomes a form of violence itself.
Violence in the favelas is becoming a commercially viable by-product of a for-profit war on drugs that serves to keep the poor marginalized and create the “spectacular favela” (Robb Larkins 2015[10]).