Packaging poverty: tourism, violence, and the politics of space in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Based on ethnographic field research with tourists, residents, and community activists in/of Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on participant-observation at Rio de Janeiro’s State Ministry of Tourism, on critical analysis of popular discourse and of federal and state urban planning policies and programs, this dissertation explores the packaging of poverty in Rio de Janeiro. It examines how particular kinds of spaces are produced, maintained, and offered up for tourist consumption, and it interrogates the connections between macro-level decision-making and micro-level practices in order to understand how and why “poverty tourism” arose and flourishes in Brazil. I argue that “poverty tourism” is neither accidental nor inconsequential, but rather that the relegation of the urban poor to the status of tourist attraction is intimately tied to the operations of class exploitation, problematic, and segregationist, spatial management policies, violent racism, and a linguistically enacted politics of hierarchical othering.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Anthropology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Tusia, Tomi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Moodie, Ellen
• Lugo, Alejandro
• Manalansan, Martin F.
• Graham, Laura R.

• violence
• poverty
• tourism
• Brazil

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2012 Tomi O'Neil Tusia

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/30975

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/30975