This colloquium aims to explore new strategies for territorial co-production emerging in favelas and peripheries in Brazil as a mobilisation in defense of democracy and insisting on discussing the city as the place of the common. This movement has been driven by the expanding access to public universities of students from the periphery and has significantly enhanced the dialogue between universities and NGOs working in the favelas.

it would not be an exaggeration to say that it is above all from these peripheral territories that the most vigorous struggle in defense of democracy and the city itself. In this process, the way in which this struggle affects the very place of universities as a source of producing science and authorized knowledge is particularly important.

The colloquium has three main objectives.

1. To present the portal of UNIR - the Rocinha Favela Research and Knowledge Production Centre, which arose from the articulation between the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and multiple partner organisations from Rocinha, Brazil's largest favela.
2. To debate the role of knowledge data policies in peripheral territories as a political act to affirm insurgent citizenship, based on concrete experiences in the favelas of Rocinha and Maré in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilândia in São Paulo.
3. To understand how horizontal socio-technical networks can be strengthened and viable through international inter-institutional partnerships.

The colloquium is idealized by the Rio Branco Chair at the Brazil Institute and is relevant to anyone with interest in informal and peripheral settlements in Brazil or other countries in the Global South.

Programme

Opening Ceremony

14:00-14:15 Welcome to Brazil Institute at King's College London and a few words about the Colloquium

• Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos - Director of King's Brazil Institute
• Karl Erik Schollhammer - Rio Branco Chair (KCL & CAPES)

Session 1- The Rocinha Favela through the UNIR portal - Rocinha Favela Research and Knowledge Production Centre - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

14:15- 15:00 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.

15:00- 15:45 Introducing the Favela of Rocinha from the UNIR Portal

• Tatiana Terry - Member of the UNIR Rocinha executive coordination, Professor in the Department of Architecture and Urbanism at PUC RIO -- Rio Branco postdoctoral fellow at the King's Brazil Institute.
• Jhonas Max Guimarães Dias - Member of the UNIR Rocinha technical team and Doctoral Fellow at the King's Brazil Institute.

15:45 -16:30 Confronting data politics to build capacities in informal settlements in the Global South

• Thaisa Comelli- Senior Research Fellow at University College London's Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction.

Coffee Break

16:30- 17:00 Presentation of videos of projects in Rocinha

• Fernando Antônio Egert (curator) - Member of the UNIR Rocinha technical team

Session 2- Other experiences of territorial co-production in Brazil

17:00- 17:45 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

17:45- 18:30 EcoCity - connecting communities

• Marcella Arruda- president of the Instituto A Cidade Precisa de Você and co-founder of the Brazilian Network of Collaborative Urbanism

18:30 -19:00 Q&A and Closing Remarks

• Karl Erik Schollhammer - Rio Branco Chair at Brazil Institute 2024-25
• Marcelo Bauman Burgos- Professor in Social Sciences (PUC-Rio) and Coordinator of UNIR Rocinha

About the participants:

Marcelo Bauman Burgos

Coordinator of UNIR Rocinha and Director of the Department of Social Sciences PUC-Rio.

Biography

Marcelo Bauman Burgos has a doctorate in Sociology from the Brazilian Society of Instruction - SBI/IUPERJ (1997) and is Professor at the Department of Social Sciences, PUC-Rio, since 1997, and Director of the same Department since 2019. His research focus is urban sociology, sociology of education and sociology of law and publications in the fields of basic education, citizenship, democracy in peripheral communities, defense and public security. Over the last 30 years Marcelo has worked as researcher and consultant on projects in partnership with various institutions such as the Ministry of Education, FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro City Hall, the Guardianship Council, the Institute of Architects of Brazil, the Latin American Security and Defense Network and the World Bank in projects sponsored by CNPQ, CAPES and FAPERJ, among others.

Tatiana Terry

Visiting Research Fellow at King's Brazil Institute, Professor in the Department of Architecture and Urbanism at PUC RIO and Member of the executive coordination UNIR Rocinha

email: Tatiana.terry@kcl.ac.uk

email: Tatiana.terry@puc-rio.br

Biography

Tatiana Terry is urban planner with expertise in coordinating urban upgrading projects such as the Favela- Bairro Program since 1994. Her doctoral research investigated recent social, and spatial transformations in some favelas of Rio de Janeiro affected by a speculative real-estate market due to State retraction and the growing influence of militias or paramilitaries groups in informal settlements over the last decade. Since 2008, she has been working on projects and researches in the Rocinha favela in Rio de Janeiro, which contributed to her approach to grassroots collectives of the favela and to the conception of UNIR PROJECT: Research Center and articulation of knowledge between Rocinha and University PUC Rio - Her most recent research project in this context is entitled : Mapping Rocinha from new perspectives: critical cartography as a backdrop.

Thaisa Comelli

Senior Research Fellow at University College London's Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction.

email: Thaisa.comelli@ucl.ac.uk

Biography

Thaisa Comelli is a Brazilian planner with over a decade of international experience, she specialises in participatory and community-led approaches to urban resilience and sustainable development. Her expertise spans social vulnerability assessments, future visioning, scenario development, and systems thinking for complex urban environments. Dr. Comelli currently leads two research projects on "climate displaceability" and "walkable, climate-resilient infrastructures in Africa." She also serves as Social Sciences Coordinator for Tomorrow's Cities, a global Community of Practice focused on equitable disaster risk reduction through forward-looking urban planning tools and decision-support systems. Over the past 10 years, she has worked in more than 15 urban contexts worldwide, collaborating with institutions such as UCLG, IIED, World Habitat, and UN-Habitat.

Cathy Mcllwaine

Professor of Geography and Vice Dean Research in the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy at King's College London

email: Cathy.mcilwaine@kcl.ac.uk

Biography

Cathy McIlwaine is Professor of Geography and Vice Dean Research in the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy at King's College London. Her research focuses on gender, violence and migration in cities of the global South, currently in Brazil, and with Latin American migrants in London. Cathy works collaboratively with human rights, migrant and arts organisations in Rio de Janeiro (Redes da Maré) and London (People's Palace Projects, Latin American Women's Rights Service, Latin Elephant, Latin America Bureau, and Migrants in Action). She has authored and edited 13 books, most recently on Gendered urban violence among Brazilians: painful truths from Rio de Janeiro and London.

Marcella Arruda

President of Instituto A Cidade Precisa de Você and co-founder of the Brazilian Collaborative Urbanism Network.

e-mail: marcellasmparruda@gmail.com

Biography

Marcella Arruda is architect and urban planner and has been working with artivism and engaged art since 2012. In recent years, she has been collaborating with communities and territories in situations of vulnerability to propose solutions for improving quality of life at a local level. Since 2017, she has been working from a permaculture and sustainability approach. Her current research priorities include collaboration, social innovation and building climate and community resilience. Marcella is co-founder of the Brazilian Collaborative Urbanism Network (2018) and is currently president of the A Cidade Precisa de Você Institute.