The site of Recife’s Brasília Teimosa favela emerged as a flash point of economic and political interests in the 1930s and the scene of subsequent strife into the 1980s. This book aims to unearth events surfacing through periods of revolution, dictatorship, populism, Cuban Communism, the 1964 military coup d’état and crackdown to the amplified reverberation of civil society voices and engagement decades later. Paulo Rui Anciaes finds that the book helps us to understand the type of context that feeds the resentment against the state that explodes once in a while, as we have seen in the wave of protests that have recently swept Brazilian cities

Anciaes, Paulo Rui

Now that the FIFA World Cup has started, it will be easy to forget the news of the few past months about police incursions into informal settlements (favelas) in some of the Brazilian cities that organize the event. And in Recife, the capital of the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, all eyes will be on the football stadium hosting the matches and not on the favelas that house 23% of the city’s population, the 4th largest percentage in the country. Charles J. Fortin’s book, Rights of Way to Brasília Teimosa is the story of one of these favelas. The first part of the name is an allusion to Brazil’s capital city, but why stubborn? Because the residents have occupied the area and managed to remain there for over 50 years during a period of fast urban growth, escaping the fate of other similar areas where the population was evicted and the houses demolished to make way to upscale housin

Anciaes, PR

UCL Discovery

June 20,2014Book Review: Rights of Way to Brasília Teimosa: ThePolitics of Squatter Settlement by Charles J. Fortinblogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2014/06/20/book-review-rights-of-way-to-brasilia-teimosa-the-politics-of-squatter-settlement/The site of Recife’s Brasília Teimosa favela emerged as a flash point of economic and politicalinterests in the 1930s and the scene of subsequent strife into the 1980s. This book aims tounearth events surfacing through periods of revolution, dictatorship, populism, CubanCommunism, the 1964 military coup d’état and crackdown to the amplified reverberation ofcivil society voices and engagement decades later. Paulo Rui Anciaes finds that thebook helps us to understand the type of context that feeds the resentment against the statethat explodes once in a while, as we have seen in the wave of protests that have recently sweptBrazilian cities.Rights of Way to Brasília Teimosa: The Politics of SquatterSettlement. Charles J. Fortin. Sussex Academic Press. 2014.Find this book:  Now that the FIFA World Cup has started, it will be easy toforget the news of the few past months about policeincursions into informal settlements (favelas) in some of theBrazilian cities that organize the event. And in Recife, thecapital of the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, all eyes willbe on the football stadium hosting the matches and not onthe favelas that house 23% of the city’s population, the 4thlargest percentage in the country.Charles J. Fortin’s book, Rights of Way to Brasília Teimosa is the story of one of thesefavelas. The first part of the name is an allusion to Brazil’s capital city, but why stubborn?Because the residents have occupied the area and managed to remain there for over 50years during a period of fast urban growth, escaping the fate of other similar areaswhere the population was evicted and the houses demolished to make way to upscalehousing.Brasília Teimosa is located in a peculiar part of the Recife: a peninsula surrounded by theCapibaribe-Tejipió River and the Atlantic Ocean, with easy access to downtown Recifeand to the beaches in the south. The site was created by dredging the estuary andforming a landfill in 1934, and it was occupied by squatters on 15 February 1958, whilethe city was celebrating the first day of Carnival. The author tells the story of this1/4community based on 33 interviews with key protagonists and “scouring huge dustytomes and transcribing, monk-like, browned crinkly faded newspaper articles from the1950s to 1980s”.The Brasília Teimosa peninsula. Credit: Raul LopesThe fate of the community has been always tied to the conflicting interests of manyparties. Over the years, politicians and agencies at all levels have balanced their needs toplease economic interests and to manage their relationships with low-incomecommunities. In 1934 the Brazilian President awarded land tenure rights to the State ofPernambuco, represented by the Recife Port Authority, to create an airport. In 1953 thesame person granted the same rights to the Fisherman’s Federation to use the site for afishing base. In the meanwhile, the Recife Municipal Government started collectingproperty taxes from squatters to increase revenue, but without formally recognizing theneighbourhood, which did not even figure in the city’s official maps. Technicians workingin the urbanization process were often told to change their plans during politicalcampaigns.Threats to the community always came under the guise of urban development plans,which proposed the transformation of the area into a middle class neighbourhood or atourist complex. In these plans, the squatters were asked to moved somewhere else orencouraged to “produce handicrafts and souvenirs and perform traditional dances” fortourists. Other times, the community was betrayed for political gain. Chapters 13-14 tellshow between 1980 and 1983 residents received title documents to the land which thenturned out to be invalid. They had been awarded as a “political currency” to help a localpolitician to be designated by his party as state governor candidate.2/4But this is also a story of struggle and resilience. The Residents Council drafted its ownlocal development plan and created theatre plays and cartoon newspapers to raiseconsciousness within the community. The Council also promoted actions such asboycotting buses that did not enter the neighbourhood, and used nonviolent resistanceto stop machinery working in the expansion of a yacht club. But there was also internaltension within the community, especially between the residents in a fishermen’s colony,who had settled before 1958, and the new arrivals, mostly migrants coming from theimpoverished areas of the interior. When plans for legalization started to appear, therewere also conflicts between property owners and renters. And the brothel at theentrance of the neighbourhood was always at the margins of the communitymovements.Families play in the water off Brasília Teimosa. Credit: Rildo Moura CC BY-ND 2.0The foreword by Janice Perlman, another expert on urban poverty in Brazil, warns thereaders about the book’s “lack of analysis”. Indeed, the author does not follow the rule of“tell the readers what you’re going to tell them; tell them; then tell them what you toldthem”. The story of Brasília Teimosa is presented without any introductions andconclusions, to each chapter and to the whole book. These would have helped theauthor to underline the lessons learnt from the research. It is also difficult for the readerto keep track of the more than 100 protagonists and the long succession of events,which are sometimes repeated and not told in chronological order. So the timeline, listsof acronyms and index turn out to be particularly useful. Some readers may also be putoff by the long transcriptions of the interviews, one of which is not even real, but anaccount of an imaginary meeting with a politician.The work is based on the author’s PhD thesis, written in 1987, and that is where thestory ends, leaving readers wanting to know what happened in the last 25 years. Thisdoes not mean that the book should be regarded simply as an historical document. Thesubject is timely as ever, as pressures from the market keep on forcing residents offavelas to move out of valuable land all over the country. The book also helps us to3/4understand the type of context that causes discontentment among underprivilegedgroups and, as mentioned in the book’s foreword, feeds the resentment against theGovernment that explodes once in a while, as we saw in the wave of protest that sweptBrazilian cities last year.——————————————-Paulo Rui Anciaes is a researcher at the Centre for Transport Studies, University CollegeLondon. He completed his PhD. at the Department of Geography and Environment ofthe London School of Economics. Paulo blogs about Community severance andAlternative Environmentalism and contributes to the UCL Street Mobility project blog.4/4

English

Book Review: Rights of Way to Brasília Teimosa: The Politics of Squatter Settlement by Charles J. Fortin

LSE Research Online

2014-6-20Book Review: Rights of Way to Brasília Teimosa: ThePolitics of Squatter Settlement by Charles J. Fortinblogs.lse.ac.uk /lsereviewofbooks/2014/06/20/book-review-rights-of-way-to-brasilia-teimosa-the-politics-of-squatter-settlement/The site of Recife’s Brasília Teimosa favela emerged as a flash point of economic and political interests inthe 1930s and the scene of subsequent strife into the 1980s. This book aims to unearth events surfacing throughperiods of revolution, dictatorship, populism, Cuban Communism, the 1964 military coup d’état and crackdown to theamplified reverberation of civil society voices and engagement decades later. Paulo Rui Anciaes  finds that thebook helps us to understand the type of context that feeds the resentment against the state that explodes once in awhile, as we have seen in the wave of protests that have recently swept Brazilian cities.Rights of Way to Brasília Teimosa: The Politics of Squatter Settlement. Charles J.Fortin. Sussex Academic Press. 2014.Find this book:  Now that the FIFA World Cup has started, it will be easy to forget the news of the fewpast months about police incursions into informal settlements (favelas) in some of theBrazilian cities that organize the event. And in Recife, the capital of the north-easternstate of Pernambuco, all eyes will be on the football stadium hosting the matches andnot on the favelas that house 23% of the city’s population, the 4th largest percentage inthe country.Charles J. Fortin’s book, Rights of Way to Brasília Teimosa  is the story of one of thesefavelas. The first part of the name is an allusion to Brazil’s capital city, but whystubborn? Because the residents have occupied the area and managed to remainthere for over 50 years during a period of fast urban growth, escaping the fate of other similar areas where thepopulation was evicted and the houses demolished to make way to upscale housing.Brasília Teimosa is located in a peculiar part of the Recife: a peninsula surrounded by the Capibaribe-Tejipió Riverand the Atlantic Ocean, with easy access to downtown Recife and to the beaches in the south. The site was createdby dredging the estuary and forming a landfill in 1934, and it was occupied by squatters on 15 February 1958, whilethe city was celebrating the first day of Carnival. The author tells the story of this community based on 33 interviewswith key protagonists and “scouring huge dusty tomes and transcribing, monk-like, browned crinkly fadednewspaper articles from the 1950s to 1980s”.1/3The Brasília Teimosa peninsula. Credit: Raul LopesThe fate of the community has been always tied to the conflicting interests of many parties. Over the years,politicians and agencies at all levels have balanced their needs to please economic interests and to manage theirrelationships with low-income communities. In 1934 the Brazilian President awarded land tenure rights to the Stateof Pernambuco, represented by the Recife Port Authority, to create an airport. In 1953 the same person granted thesame rights to the Fisherman’s Federation to use the site for a fishing base. In the meanwhile, the Recife MunicipalGovernment started collecting property taxes from squatters to increase revenue, but without formally recognizingthe neighbourhood, which did not even figure in the city’s official maps. Technicians working in the urbanizationprocess were often told to change their plans during political campaigns.Threats to the community always came under the guise of urban development plans, which proposed thetransformation of the area into a middle class neighbourhood or a tourist complex. In these plans, the squatters wereasked to moved somewhere else or encouraged to “produce handicrafts and souvenirs and perform traditionaldances” for tourists. Other times, the community was betrayed for political gain. Chapters 13-14 tells how between1980 and 1983 residents received title documents to the land which then turned out to be invalid. They had beenawarded as a “political currency” to help a local politician to be designated by his party as state governor candidate.But this is also a story of struggle and resilience. The Residents Council drafted its own local development plan andcreated theatre plays and cartoon newspapers to raise consciousness within the community. The Council alsopromoted actions such as boycotting buses that did not enter the neighbourhood, and used nonviolent resistance tostop machinery working in the expansion of a yacht club. But there was also internal tension within the community,especially between the residents in a fishermen’s colony, who had settled before 1958, and the new arrivals, mostlymigrants coming from the impoverished areas of the interior. When plans for legalization started to appear, therewere also conflicts between property owners and renters. And the brothel at the entrance of the neighbourhood wasalways at the margins of the community movements.2/3Families play in the water off Brasília Teimosa. Credit: Rildo Moura CC BY-ND 2.0The foreword by Janice Perlman, another expert on urban poverty in Brazil, warns the readers about the book’s“lack of analysis”. Indeed, the author does not follow the rule of “tell the readers what you’re going to tell them; tellthem; then tell them what you told them”. The story of Brasília Teimosa is presented without any introductions andconclusions, to each chapter and to the whole book. These would have helped the author to underline the lessonslearnt from the research. It is also difficult for the reader to keep track of the more than 100 protagonists and the longsuccession of events, which are sometimes repeated and not told in chronological order. So the timeline, lists ofacronyms and index turn out to be particularly useful. Some readers may also be put off by the long transcriptions ofthe interviews, one of which is not even real, but an account of an imaginary meeting with a politician.The work is based on the author’s PhD thesis, written in 1987, and that is where the story ends, leaving readerswanting to know what happened in the last 25 years. This does not mean that the book should be regarded simplyas an historical document. The subject is timely as ever, as pressures from the market keep on forcing residents offavelas to move out of valuable land all over the country. The book also helps us to understand the type of contextthat causes discontentment among underprivileged groups and, as mentioned in the book’s foreword, feeds theresentment against the Government that explodes once in a while, as we saw in the wave of protest that sweptBrazilian cities last year.——————————————-Paulo Rui Anciaes  is a researcher at the Centre for Transport Studies, University College London. He completedhis PhD. at the Department of Geography and Environment of the London School of Economics. Paulo blogs aboutCommunity severance and Alternative Environmentalism and contributes to the UCL Street Mobility project blog.Read more reviews by Paulo.Copyright 2013 LSE Review of Books3/3

Book review: rights of way to Brasília Teimosa: the politics of squatter settlement by Charles J. Fortin

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Book review: rights of way to Brasília Teimosa: the politics of squatter settlement by Charles J. Fortin

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