A Birosca e o Boteco: Trajetórias de donos de bares em uma favela pacificada no Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This dissertation analyses the life stories of two bar-owners and their businesses, in order to provide diverse outlooks on the implementation of the pacification policy in a Rio de Janeiro slum, from its rise to its decline. Exploring the differences between two types of bar – the boteco and the birosca – I seek to capture the diversity of economic experiences in the favelas, and to get a closer perspective on the micropolitical processes that have, over the past decade, shaped social and urban integration initiatives in the city. In 2009 the inauguration of a Police Pacification Unit (UPP, portuguese acronym) changed the daily life in the Chapéu Mangueira Favela, in Rio de Janeiro’s South Zone. A surge in public and private investments, as well as a large tourist influx, were fueled by the permanent presence of the police forces. In their own way, Chapeu Mangueira residents embodied projects for local economic development endorsed by police control, thus subsidizing several narratives about the favela’s integration with the city's more affluent neighborhoods. After the UPP’s decline, cemented in 2017, the favela again experienced police raidings and shootouts, which led to a sharp decrease in touristic activities. Such scenario affected local businesses, but not uniformly. Through situated observations and formal and informal interviews, I try to reconstruct the course of expectations and disappointments built around UPPs in Rio de Janeiro. Such dive in individual perspectives allows access to new hypothesis regarding contemporary forms of “making a living” and urban transformations in the city’s outskirts.