Olimpíadas 2016 e a construção de um novo Rio: o marketing do legado, as políticas públicas e as estratégias comunicacionais em torno das favelas e das remoções

Abstract

This MA thesis analyses the place of the favela in the current remodeling of Rio de Janeiro in preparation of the Olympic and Paraolympic Games of 2016, focusing especially in the constructionof discourses on the removal of favelas. It takes as its starting point narrative about the favela in the olympic candidacy project, Rio 2016, Live your Passion and discusses current public policy involving these territories: the Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora (a form of community policing), Morar Carioca (housing) and Porto Maravilha (the renovation of the port area). It discusses city government’s discourse on the removal of favelas in the light of Foucault’s concept of biopower. Finally, it reflects on communications strategies adopted by sectors that resist the removals. The marketing of the legacy, present in the Rio 2016 candidacy campaign, focuses on the idea of a city integrated by public policy and the resemantization of removals by city government as action in defense of the lives of favela dwellers have led a number of actors to join forces, occupy the streets and mobilize on the internet. The Comitê Popular Rio Copa e Olimpíadas has been organized in this context and has produced dossiers, reports, videos, events and profiles on social media. The material produced by the Committee is analysed in the light of Lafuente and Corsín’s notion of “communities of the concerned” that build the commons in a process of Maussian gift-giving that involves using communications technologies.