FAVELA TOUR: UM DELICADO EQUILÍBRIO DE FORÇAS

Abstract

In Rio de Janeiro the practice of tourism in shanty town is not a recent phenomenon. It has its first documentation dating from the beginning of the 20th century and had expanded from the spectacularisation of the space. Stigmatized by violence and precariousness, these shanty towns had their daily routine extensively exploited by media actions that, allied to the State police intervention through Pacific Police Units, boosted the Favela Tour practice. In Santa Marta’s favela, the pacification process preceded the institutionalization of tourism through the implementation of the Rio Top Tour program designed by the Authorities to attract new financial channels to the community then named as "Favela Modelo". Currently the community is impacted by the decline in tourist activity as a result of increased violence as well as confrontation over the territorial dispute and the discontinuation of idealized improvement policies based on the possibility of transforming that place in fertile space for the reproduction of capital.