Mega-events and socio-spatial dynamics in Rio de Janeiro, 1919-2016

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which discourses of urban development and sociospatial discipline are wrapped around infrastructure development projects associated with recent, future, and proposed international mega-events in Rio de Janeiro. In the past few years the city and state governments of Rio de Janeiro invested billions of dollars in sporting, tourist, transportation and security infrastructures for the 2007 Pan American Games and hundreds of millions of dollars preparing for the 2014 World Cup and bidding (twice) for the 2016 Olympics. By looking at the historical trajectory of mega-events in Rio de Janeiro, I argue that there has been a discernable shift in the ideologies that drive the production of mega-events in the city. These logics have discursively and materially shifted from more localized expressions of notions of social inclusion and industrial democracy in the mid-20th century to reflect the socio-spatial exigencies of capital in a period of accelerated globalization. I suggest that mega-events impose a neo-liberal “shock doctrine”, installing temporary regimes of extra-legal governance that permanently transform socio-space in Rio de Janeiro.