Ins and outs of the cultural polis: informality, culture and governance in the global South

This paper provides an epistemological critique of informality by focusing on cultural governance in two cities of the global South, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Dakar, Senegal. Aiming to enrich debates about urban creativity and urban cultural policy, which are still mainly focused on and articulated from the global North, we consider the broad field of ‘informality’ research as an entry point for such a discussion. Using case studies from African and Latin American contexts, we focus on the interstices of cultural policy and the borderlands of (in)formality, examining how governmental institutions are entangled in informal processes, and how grassroots cultural interventions become part of mainstream cultural circuits. The analysis sheds light on how these creative spaces of cultural production, located in Southern contexts of urban extremes, contribute to the vitality of informal urbanisms and unsettle predominant views that see them merely as sites ofinfrastructural poverty and social exclusion. The paper suggests that a creative remapping of informality, through an inquiry of the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of the cultural polis, could improve our translating capacity of academic discourse into institutional/policy-related operations

Re-thinking the creative economy through informality and social inclusion: changing policy directions from Latin America

This chapter examines the extent to which a focus on the informal creative economy can support peripheral cultural scenes that remain invisible to policy and society. The first part briefly outlines the key features of informal settlements in Latin America; the second looks at policy initiatives in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires that have sought to develop, encourage and support creative economies in disadvantaged or peripheral areas; the third part reflects on how these initiatives might help expand, challenge or rethink predominant views and policies on the creative economy from other contexts, assessing whether they might also help overcome ‘creative injustice’ (Banks, 2017) in the sector. Overall, the chapter shows how Latin American countries are starting to launch initiatives for the creative sector that are motivated by concerns with social inclusion and development in marginalised locations. However, these goals can be at odds with the frameworks from which the programmes develop, as they are often underpinned by a market-oriented logic based on individualistic entrepreneurialism and commercialisation

Public policies and sports in marginalised communities: the case of Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Significant economic development has been experienced by Brazilian society in recent years, leading to important changes in its social structures. The country\u27s success in attracting sport mega-events has resulted in the media increasingly portraying the current period as Brazil\u27s “sport decade.” This paper considers the phenomenon of sport participation in Brazil in the context of significant investments in sport mega-events. In particular, it considers how the Brazilian government has been delivering sport and physical activity opportunities for low socio-economic groups and the extent to which people living in a marginalised community have benefited from these developments. This involves an analysis of sport and physical activity projects and programmes supported by the Brazilian federal government in the community of Cidade de Deus, one of the most densely populated favelas in Rio de Janeiro. The area is located close to the Olympic Park, which will host most of the key facilities for the 2016 Olympic Games and so is a community that could be significantly impacted, positively or negatively, by the hosting of the event. The results of the investigation provide insights into the developments that have occurred in the provision of sport and physical activity opportunities to this marginalised community and the role public policies play in facilitating access to sport and physical activity