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Aerial of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ;

Developments of the Colloquium 'Strategies for Territorial Co-Production': The Renewal of Democracy in Favelas and Peripheries

11 April 2025

On February 12th the Rio Branco Chair at the Brazil Institute, Professor Karl Erik Schollhammer (KCL / CAPES / FAPERJ), organized an important event bringing together researchers from Brazil and the United Kingdom who work on social projects in informal peripheral settlements in Brazil.

The event was organized to exchange experiences and discuss how partnerships between universities and local NGOs have contributed to political mobilization and engaging the population in the most urgent territorial issues. Initiatives and projects in the Rocinha favela and Complexo da Maré in Rio de Janeiro, and Brasilândia in São Paulo were debated through the following presentations:

  • Insurgent networks in the context of stifled citizenship in peripheral territories - Marcelo Baumann Burgos - Coordinator of UNIR Rocinha and Director of the Department of Social Sciences PUC-Rio (CAPES / FAPERJ).
  • Introducing the Favela of Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro from the UNIR Portal (Rocinha Favela Research and Knowledge Production Centre) - Tatiana Terry - Rio Branco postdoctoral fellow at the King's Brazil Institute (PUC-Rio / CAPES).
  • Confronting data politics to build capacities in informal settlements in the Global South - Thaisa Comelli - Research Fellow at University College London's Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction.
  • Feminist responses to gendered urban violence and resistance across body community-city territories in Mare, Rio de Janeiro - Cathy Mcllwaine - Professor of Geography and Vice Dean Research in the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy at King's College London.
  • EcoCity - connecting communities in Brasilândia São Paulo - Marcella Arruda- president of the Instituto A Cidade Precisa de Você and co-founder of the Brazilian Network of Collaborative Urbanism.

The debates following the presentations focused on the theme of territory as a place of resistance and on how new strategies of territorial co-production emerging in peripheral communities are powerful for defending democracy in Latin America. Reflecting on the processes of knowledge production as a source of power and the affirmation of insurgent citizenship (Holston, 2009), amidst highly unequal cities impacted by war-driven urbanism and the logic of the city as a commodity, the researchers assessed that the horizontal sociotechnical networks being created between universities and favela organizations are essential for an epistemic shift in the relationship between the university and these territories. Stimulated by this activism, the participants of the Colloquium have stayed in contact planning the organization of new events.

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