Abstract
Rio de Janeiro’s former port has undergone an intense process of transformation driven by investor expectations and real estate profitability objectives. However, in this depressed area, long marked by various territorial stigmas, the rise in land value largely depends upon symbolic revaluation. One of the main objectives of the large-scale urban redevelopment project known as Porto Maravilha is to reverse existing perceptions of the port area, moving away from representations as an abandoned, decadent, dangerous space, towards a more positive image as a showcase for Rio de Janeiro and a new gateway to the city. This article describes the triple process through which this reversal is achieved: territorial stigmatization, symbolic re-signification and planned repopulation. It documents various strategies used by project proponents to radically transform the symbolic, material and social make-up of the area in order to promote its revaluation. It also aims to document diverse modes of resistance developed by local population groups to denounce the invisibility, silencing and symbolic erasure they have suffered, showing, in the process, that in Porto Maravilha, culture serves both as an instrument of gentrification and as a tool of resistance.
Highlights
This paper takes a critical look at Porto Maravilha, Rio de Janeiro’s port revitalization project launched in 2009 as part of the city’s Olympic mega-projects
From our point of view, Porto Maravilha is first and foremost a real estate project whose success is dependent upon the symbolic re-signification of the territory
Drawing from Wacquant (2007), we posit that this “territorial de-stigmatization”, accomplished through a process of radical cultural reconfiguration, is essential to the real estate valuation of the sector and key to the economic success of Porto Maravilha
Summary
This paper takes a critical look at Porto Maravilha, Rio de Janeiro’s port revitalization project launched in 2009 as part of the city’s Olympic mega-projects. Dozens of formal and informal interviews were conducted with actors involved in the transformation process, at the city administration level and in private consortiums, as well as with local-residents, activists, workers and business owners, artists and members of diverse groups and associations. This information was supplemented with a wide range of secondary sources, including extensive press reviews in the printed and web media, scholarly publications, planning documents, official websites, activist blogs, and NGO reports.. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the ways in which local populations groups are resisting their symbolic erasure, invisibilization and silencing, thereby demonstrating that in Porto Maravilha, culture will be both an instrument of gentrification and a tool of resistance
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