Networks of participation in favelas in Rio de Janeiro : the experiences of community leaders fostering continuous and affective networks to resist oppressive power

Approximately one billion people live in informal settlements. From the early 2000s, governments and international organisations have adopted community participation as ‘best practice’ in slum upgrading programmes. Two decades later, however, informal settlements continue to experience precarious living conditions and multiple forms of oppression. To better understand participation in informal settlements, I situate this thesis at the intersection of three concepts: informality, participation, and social networks. Within the existing academic debates, informality is examined as acts of resistance, participation encompasses a wide array of activities pursued by civil society to transform urban spaces, and social networks are considered to offer the potential for economic advancement. Informed by a combination of unstructured and semi-structured interviews with community leaders in ‘favelas’ — Brazilian slums — in Rio de Janeiro, this study highlights their knowledge, expertise, and imagination, often manifested as practices of resistance. To study these practices, the research employed an innovative conceptual framework combining the ‘spaces of participation’ approach and social network concepts. The framework was effective in enhancing our understanding of participation — whether government-led or community driven — and enabling an analysis of the network strategies employed as well as a critical assessment of the purpose and quality of the resulting networks. By adopting a constructivist grounded theory approach — employing both deductive and inductive reasoning — the findings produced in this thesis offer five key contributions. First, I provide evidence for the limitations and power dynamics experienced by the community leaders in favela urbanisation policies, leading to the development of the concept of ‘conquering spaces of participation’. The term ‘conquering’ illustrates a process in which community leaders were required to assert not only their right to participate, but also the legitimacy of their knowledge in the process. Second, I present a diversity of participatory strategies to resist power imbalances either autonomously or in opposition to oppressive power holders, offering a more nuanced understanding of ‘claimed/created spaces of participation’. Third, I demonstrate that community leaders do not develop networks for individualistic economic advancement, contrary to what the literature suggests, but rather cultivate ‘continuous’ and ‘affective’ relationships based on mutual trust and legitimacy to pursue a collective social development in favelas, challenging multiple forms of entrenched oppressive power relations. Fourth, I further expand the notion of participation, define the concept of ‘effective participation’, and present how participation and social network literature can enhance our understanding of the practices of resistance led by community leaders in favelas. Lastly, I conclude that community leaders pursue a combination of acts of resistance through a diverse set of ‘spaces of participation’ by promoting a mobilisation of collective networks of mutual respect and legitimacy, demonstrating that the literatures of participation and social networks can mutually enhance one another when productively brought together in a dialogue.

Grantor dc:publisher

Oxford Brookes University

Author dc:creator

• Natividad Puig, Oscar

Contributors dc:contributor

• Akerkar, Supriya
• Jones, Tim
• Jordan, Zoe
• Rowden, Emma

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Language dc:language

en

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.24384/swsp-0y59

OAI identifier oai:identifier

tle:9a49bad1-68f9-4a5a-8530-db0defdb7cd0:d6bd9758-527a-46cd-bfe2-c433766e8fca:1