Resisting Olympic evictions

Contesting space in Rio de Janeiro
Resisting Olympic evictions explores how one favela mobilised urban space to contest the logic underpinning removals in the glare of the mega-events spotlight. Based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil, it provides instructive lessons on building democratic and just cities across the Global South.
By tracing the way evictions in a small community of around 600 families made news headlines all over the world, this book explores how activists in Rio protested against evictions at the Rio 2016 Olympics. They constructed the favela as safe, welcoming and homely, directly contesting the myth of marginality the notion of favelas as havens of crime and poverty which is used to justify slum clearance. In doing so they were showcasing how a different kind of informal community rooted in security and belonging is possible, through a range of social events and other actions. Based on 14 months of fie