Fun with abstracts

So the date to submit paper proposals for LASA 2009 was yesterday (Latin American Studies Association Conference – this one in Rio de Janeiro, currently Dengue Fever capital). As I am still floundering about the city with the shreds of a research question stuck to the soles of my sneakers, I of course have no idea what my paper for this might actually entail.

But as I am totally pumped at the prospect of going to Rio (and who wouldn’t be?) - I did what I normally do when under the gun to write up a proposal: screw any sense of what a person in my position is capable of researching and make outlandish and unfounded claims about what I intend to prove. When caught with your pants down, you might as well put on a show, no?

Here is the write-up. Notice the complete lack of any methodology, scientific objectivity, or claim to evidence. But in my defense, LASA only allows a 50-70 word paper description so there is really no space for all of that. (For anyone familiar with it, you can also notice the heavy influence of Charles Tilly’s essay War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. You can thank Bo for that lead.)

Title of Proposed Paper: Of Democracy and Discipline: The Logic of Government Engagement in the Slums of São Paulo

Description of Paper: In this paper I attempt to explain the seemingly contradictory involvement of the Brazilian state in urban squatter communities (favelas) in the present day. On the one hand, the Brazilian state has dropped dictatorship-era expulsion strategies and is now spending millions of dollars on research and upgrading programs to improve favela quality of life. On the other hand, the state continues to tacitly support the use of indiscriminate and excessive police violence in these same communities, with police killings rising sharply in the post-authoritarian period. I argue that this seemingly contradictory approach is actually a rational carrot and stick strategy to subdue favelas and bring them under state control. The ultimate aim of this strategy is to protect elite citizen's material interests from the underclass, hence the sticks, but it is tempered by the constraints that democratic electoral politics place on elite action. These constraints have caused the mutation of broad state violence into individual instances of police brutality and the new reliance on carrots to purchase favela acquiescence to state sovereignty.

And if all this wasn’t enough, I turned the beast in a day late because of continued internet access problems. Thankfully it’s not the German Studies Association conference, so I hope I’ll be OK.

(Researchers) have only interpreted the world…

“Those who authentically commit themselves to the people must re-examine themselves constantly…. The man or woman who proclaims devotion to the cause of human liberation yet is unable to enter into communion with the people… is grievously self-deceived. The convert who approaches the people but… attempts to impose his ‘status’ remains nostalgic towards his origins [as a member of an oppressive class].”
-Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

My bumbling quest for THE research question is complicated by an identity crisis – what am I?

My official title is researcher, but this new hat sits awkwardly on my head. How do I reconcile this with my personal ethics and a longer history as “one devoted to the cause of human liberation”? Read the quote above and tell me how I am supposed to live up to this standard while at the same time produce academic work. Can it be done? Who has done it before? How would I do it in São Paulo?

I am only starting to get a taste for what being a researcher means, and the implications this could have on my work, my relations with people as I develop it, and what I will be in a position to produce. I can’t yet tell if they are implications I should welcome.

There are definite benefits to the researcher hat, don’t get me wrong. When I wave the Fulbright flag I get the time, attention, and help of powerful and well educated people who wouldn’t give me the time of day if I were, say, a random social justice activist (and foreign at that). Yet at the same time this relationship tends to force my thinking and communication into distinct boxes: they want to know my research question, methodology, and plans to proceed up front. I tend to get blank stares or a few confused questions when I start off any other way- traction only comes when I start speaking the academic language.

What I really want is a heart-to-heart with a Brazilian social justice academic who can share their experiences and insight, but one can’t expect to waltz into a random office and have this type of interaction within the first 15 minutes. It might take months to find this person and have this conversation.

Add this to the troubles I will soon have engaging favela residents, let alone academics, and my head is ready to explode.

The kicker? This is an identity I will be negotiating for the next 8 months, and perhaps the rest of my life if I continue academic pursuits. (Readers… your input would be appreciated, please consider a comment or e-mail!)

ATM Error Messages - a selection

“The operation cannot be realized on this machine”

“The card you inserted is not the same as the one used before”

“Reading error”

“Machine temporarily unable to process your request. Please try again later.”

“Operation cancelled”

“Please insert your card again” – repeated indefinitely

My personal favorite was going to the Bank of Brasil on Avendia Paulista (São Paulo’s version of 5th Avenue, where there is a bank every 5 feet) and not being able to make a payment with my MasterCard. I was sent through two different lines and assisted by 3 staff before they finally decided the bank was not capable of processing my card. Then I went down the street to the grocery store and bought a jug of water with the same card, no problem. Oh Brazil!

Brazilian Social Thought

Thanks to a meeting with one of the researchers at my affiliate I now have a 10-book tall stack of readings to peruse. And she got me excited about something I hadn’t yet considered – the importance of getting a taste for Brazilian social thought/criticism while here.

“It’s a little strange to us,” she said, “when foreign researchers come here to study housing, or social services, or poverty, but then their articles have bibliographies almost entirely in English.” That, or they only pull Portuguese language sources for their descriptions/data, but never touch the larger social theory that hasn’t been translated.

So a new goal is to buck this trend and make getting a taste for Brazilian social criticism a significant part of my time here. Aside from your stock Paulo Freire (whose Pedagogy of the Oppressed I am currently reading), the names on the top of the list are: Francisco de Oliveira, Gilberto Freyre, and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda. Heard of these? Me neither. But ask me again in 8 months!

Welcome to the World Bank

Little did I know that my first week in São Paulo happened to coincide with this.

It’s the “International Dialogue on Public Policy: The challenge of slum urbanization: Sharing São Paulo’s experience.” Funds for the conference came from the World Bank and member countries of the Cities Alliance (whose motto is “Cities without Slums,” a deliciously indeterminate phrase that brings to mind all sorts of lovely slum-clearing schemes). Why they chose the Hotel Intercontinental in Jardim Paulista is beyond me. Did the planners not notice the irony of holding a conference on slum upgrading at one of the chicest hotels in the city?

I showed up for the final plenary session around 9am on the coat tails of the aforementioned Columbia architecture group. We were given coffee and issued translation headsets before heading in to hear the closing thoughts of the invited participantes: public officials from Cairo (Egypt), Lagos (Nigeria), Ekurhuleni (South Africa), Mumbi (India), and Taguig (Phillipines). It was essentially a giant love fest, with plenty of gushing over the wonderful director of the São Paulo housing department and her staff. To be fair, it was a closing plenary, and that is how those things are supposed to go. But having just left Paraisópolis the day before I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable at the self-congratulatory tone. That, and the champagne.

Rather than narrate, I will bullet point the excesses of the meeting:

• The plenary was followed by a champagne reception, then an amazing catered lunch and dessert buffet. (Never one to pass on free food, I admit I took advantage of the latter two.)
  
• An award ceremony and giant flower arrangement for the São Paulo housing director moments after she dodged a pointed question about insufficient compensation for evicted families with the response: “ummm… someone will meet with you later and you can ask them.”
  
• Printing maybe 200 glossy art-books summarizing the slum upgrading projects in the city that would easily run $35-40 retail, and giving them away to participants for free. Yes, I got one, and it could have been food for a month for someone who needed it.
  
• Having a World Bank rep confide to one of the Columbia professors that the reason impressive examples of slum upgrading in Caracas were not discussed during the week is because Venezuela just pulled out of the World Bank.

Paraisópolis

Never doubt the power of making random blog posts. That and a serendipitous crossing of calendars brought me across a table from Robert Neuwirth today – author of Shadow Cities and a one-time resident of favela Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro. Something about the journalism profession, perhaps the imperative to get people talking to you quickly and comfortably, makes for friendly and down to earth folk. (Also check his blog squattercity for updates on slum issues worldwide.)

Through him I have attached myself to a group from the Columbia University School of Architecture here to inject new ideas into the upgrading project going on in favela Paraisópolis (São Paulo’s second largest, with approx. 60,000 residents). Lucky for me they are getting the executive treatment and are happy to take me along for the ride – briefings by top housing officials in the city that I would have needed a month or more to score. Makes me think that getting a PhD and a tenured position somewhere is worth it only to have people take you seriously when you want information.

Also through them I got the chance to explore Paraisópolis, which you can see for yourself in the picture at the top of this post.

Paraisópolis is particularly notable for its proximity to the uber-rich bairro of Morumbi (see that building with the balcony pools?). This extreme closeness of favela to rich neighborhood is harder to find in São Paulo than in Rio, as most favelas and irregular settlements are in the periphery. Proximity also makes for some serious political tensions. One reason why São Paulo’s rich are so happy about slum upgrading is that the building plans effectively wall off Paraisópolis from its surroundings, hiding it behind new public housing high-rises and a four-lane road.

Paraisópolis also has a highly unusual grid formation due to the history of its founding. I have heard two versions of this, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. First is the story of how the community began as a planned shantytown to house temporary workers from the interior, brought to the city to build the soccer stadium. When the workers never left, Parisópolis was born. That, and/or a zoning law made the already parceled and sold land virtually unbuildable, causing the original owners to abandon the property and leave pre-formed blocks ripe for squatting.

The presence of multiple ordered roads, even though narrow and choked with knots of traffic, has fed some quite vibrant business growth. There are small churches, grocery stores, bars, building supply and gas stores, clothing shops, and hairstylists. The proximity to service jobs in rich neighborhoods has boosted incomes and houses are impressive for a slum, made largely of brick, mortar, poured concrete and re-bar. Most have two or three floors. I learned from a resident that a nice place here with all basic amenities, and in rare cases even pirated internet access, rents for between $300-350 reais a month (200-220 dollars). “Very expensive,” she told me, and I am inclined to agree. When I left Columbus, OH I was paying just 100 dollars more for my half of a spacious apartment. Especially to anyone living in smaller or newer favelas, it’s a noticeably higher income bracket that populates the nicest parts of Paraisópolis.

Along with its poorer neighbors Jardim Colombo and Porto Seguro, the city has chosen Paraisópolis to be the site of a flagship urbanization and regularization program. Approximately $1 billion reais (670 million dollars) will be channeled into upgraded road and sewage systems, as home demolition makes way for green spaces and public housing. There are all sorts of interesting tensions around this that might be worth unpacking. Look out for a future post…

Office Space?

There are benefits to having an affiliate that doesn’t actually want to be affiliated with you. I am not expected to keep regular office hours, nor work on anyone else’s project. On the busy days I am running all over the city following leads as I wish, unlike the two other Fulbrighters I am currently living with, who keep a strict 9-5 at their university offices. Ahh, such is the life of real scientists! At these times I relish the fact I am not cooped up in a lab.


But on the slow days when I have nowhere to go but my apartment I feel a bit like a lost pup. It would be nice to have an “office day” I think, instead of shelling out between $5-15 dollars for an afternoon in the internet café, making calls between the gun-blasts of the nearest pre-teen’s online game.