Synopses & Reviews
In Rio de Janeiros favelas, traffickers assert power through conspicuous displays of wealth and force, brandishing high-powered guns, gold jewelry, and piles of cash and narcotics. Police, for their part, conduct raids reminiscent of action films or video games, wearing masks and riding in enormous armored cars called big skulls.” Images of these spectacles circulate constantly in local, national, and global media, masking everyday forms of violence, prejudice, and inequality.
The Spectacular Favela offers a rich ethnographic examination of the political economy of spectacular violence in Rocinha, Rios largest favela. Based on more than two years of residence in the community, the book explores how entangled forms of violence shape everyday life and how that violence is, in turn, connected to the market economy.
Erika Robb Larkins shows how favela violence is produced as a marketable global brand. While this violence is projected in disembodied form through media, the favela is also sold as an embodied experience through the popular practice of favela tourism. The commodification of the favela becomes a form of violence itself; favela violence is transformed into a commercially viable byproduct of a profit-driven war on drugs, which serves to keep the poor marginalized. This book tells the story of how traffickers, police, cameras, tourists, and even anthropologists come together to create what the author calls the spectacular favela.”
Synopsis
This rich narrative ethnography examines the political economy of violence in the Rio de Janeiro favela of Rocinha. Based on more than two years of residence in the community, Erika Robb Larkins's work shows how entangled forms of violence become essential forces shaping everyday social relations in the favela. The book shows how armed actorsdrug traffickers and policeuse spectacle to perform power. Yet despite the prevalence of physical violence, the favela has itself become a valuable global brand, consumed in disembodied fashion through media and in embodied fashion through tourism. Exploring both media and favela tourism, this book demonstrates how the social relationships that arise from ongoing favela violence have a direct relationship to the market economy. Set on the eve of the mega-event Rio, The Spectacular Favela uses compelling storytelling to propose a conceptualization of favela violence that not only emphasizes its performative nature but demonstrates that commodification is central as well.
About the Author
Erika Robb Larkins is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Narco-Traffic
2. The Penal State
3. Favela, Inc.
4. The Tourists
5. Peace”
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index