ABSTRACT Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) remains one of the most significant problems affecting women globally with its elimination being central to achieving SDG 5 on gender equality. While information on its prevalence is increasing globally, this is often at the national scale with limited local-level data. Responding to feminist critiques of SDG 5 and target 5.2 in terms of the importance of capturing more nuanced data on grassroots women’s experiences as agents rather than victims, this paper reflects on countermapping VAWG in the favelas of Maré in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Drawing on countermapping methodologies, it analyses a series of countermaps highlighting the prevalence of VAWG, but also the need to report and resist it locally. Only by revealing the complexity of VAWG and women’s practices to deal with it can such violence be truly eliminated in order to meet SDG 5 and target 5.2.

AbstractWithin emerging fields of research focusing on neuro‐urbanism, neuro‐geographies, and biosociality, which experiment with using emerging mobile biosensor methods, few if any have used them to research socio‐spatial life in communities that suffer high levels of violence and other socio‐spatial injustices. Extending non‐representational accounts of the body, emotions, and affect, this paper discusses an experimental geography–neuroscience collaboration, working in a favela of Rio de Janeiro to explore the embodied urban emotions and affects of violently bordered urban communities. Emphasising non‐representational, corporeal spatial practices in a study of women living in Brazil's favelas, we use electrodermal activity biosensors to propose a novel methodological and analytical approach that focuses on forms of affective debilitation and resilience. Theoretically, we draw on biopolitical theory and border theory to propose a method that avoids oppositions between biopolitical and necropolitical accounts of borders. The aim of the research, conducted in June 2016, is to understand levels of affective debilitation or resilience among women living in the Maré Complex of favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Using a wearable biosensor, we took measures of electrodermal activity of eight women as they undertook one of their routine, everyday journeys within the favela. We also conducted an hour‐long qualitative interview with each participant. We find that for all our participants, navigating the favela's violent border spaces subjects their bodies to very high levels of affective and cognitive demand. While some women responded to this with stress reactions that created acute levels of affective debilitation, others responded very strongly, showing exceptionally high levels of affective resilience. Our research highlights the affective labour required of women to co‐construct urban borders, and emphasizes their agency and forms of everyday resistance in shaping the favela's affective atmospheres. Combined biosensing (electrodermal activity/galvanic skin response) data and interview data reveal that women living in the favela experience high levels of stress and fear. For one resident this results in affective debilitation (a wounding of the capacity to affect and to be affected). However, other women showed exceptionally high levels of affective resilience and resistance. The research points to the important role of women in co‐constructing the embodied borders of the favela.

The impact of urban violence on society has been the subject of several studies, but the consequences of fear for habits of cultural consumption are missing in cultural economics research. This article investigates whether the fear of urban violence explains individuals' choice between different options of cultural participation with a particular focus on the activities of watching movies and listening to music. Based on individual data from a survey conducted in 2019 with 1211 residents from a conglomeration of sixteen favelas (slums) located in the Maré neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), this study employs Simultaneous Bivariate Ordered Probit Models to verify the association between individuals' fear of violence and their choice of consuming culture in private or public spaces. Controlling for socioeconomic, demographic, and territorial variables, the findings indicate that consuming culture in private spaces is a substitute for public spaces when individuals are more afraid of violence. The results presented in this work provide evidence for the design and implementation of policies targeting territories impacted by high levels of violence.

BackgroundMental health has deteriorated during the COVID-19 pandemic. These impacts are likely to be more severe in socially vulnerable communities. Previous research has identified useful self-help strategies that individuals may use to maintain and improve mental health. However, these studies have typically ignored economically and socially marginalized communities and have used researcher pre-defined practices. Little is known what activities or actions members of poor urban communities from low and middle income countries may utilize to take care of their mental health. MethodsDuring March and April 2021, we conducted open-ended interviews with 317 community members in Complexo de Favelas da Maré, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, one of the largest slum areas in South America. Individuals were interviewed in selected public spaces to provide a representative sample of the wider area. Our sample consisted of 178 (56.1%) cis women, 133 (41.9%) cis men, 3 (0.9%) trans men, and 3 (0.9%) classified themselves as other. The majority of participants had incomplete middle school or less (54.2%) and were between 30 and 60 years (54.1%). ResultsUsing thematic analysis, we identified eight major themes in the responses. The most common themes that emerged were work, leisure activities (including watching TV & physical exercise) and religion/prayer. These findings did not clearly align with previous mental health recommendations. Some results were noteworthy by their absence, e.g., cost-effective mental health practices such as yoga, meditation or mindfulness were not mentioned. Only 4 individuals reported consulting mental health professionals during the pandemic. ConclusionsOur findings highlight the need for better public health campaigns that disseminate information for effective mental health practices during acute crises, especially for communities that are most vulnerable during public health crises.

This article offers a creative disjunctive feminist analysis of affective rhythms within a complexly bordered complex of favelas in Rio de Janeiro. It explores the gendered atmospheric constitution of authority in the favela’s violent border spaces, arguing that authority is partly embodied through a channelling of attention. Attention is conceptualised as involving not just conscious intentions, perceptions and emotions, but also non-conscious rhythms of autonomous affective self-regulation. The article is structured through a tripartite disjunctive form that expresses the bordering of city, body and experience. Drawing on qualitative interview data, quantitative electrodermal activity physiological data and creative writing, the article dwells with the materiality of words and the forms of affects to express material and physiological aspects of emotion and affect in journeys around the internal border-spaces of the city. Adapting the modernist tradition of ‘stream of consciousness’ writing, we style a ‘stream of attention’ form of writing that expresses multiple modes of embodied, conscious and preconscious attention.

ABSTRACT Although the intensification of direct and indirect gendered violence against women during the COVID-19 pandemic has been extensively reported globally, there is limited research on women’s responses to it. Addressing calls to explore the relationships between emotional-affective atmospheres and politics during the pandemic as well as to centre analyses of gendered violence within geography, this paper explores how women in the favelas of Maré, in Rio de Janeiro have developed mutual support, (self)-care and activism in the face of the crisis. Engaging with nascent debates on responses to COVID-19, together with feminist geographical work on resistance to gendered violence, the article adapts the notion of ‘emotional communities’ developed by Colombian anthropologist, Myriam Jimeno, to examine how emotional bonds created among survivors of violence are reconfigured into political action. Drawing on qualitative research with 32 women residents and 9 community actors involved in two core community initiatives in Maré, the paper develops the idea of building reactive and transformative ‘emotional-political communities’ at individual and collective levels to mitigate gendered violence and wider intersectional structural violence. Emotional-political community building is premised on grassroots activism among women and organisations that develops as part of compassionate (self)-care and the quiet rather than spectacular politics of change.

The COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil has caused a scenario of extreme social vulnerability, with high unemployment rates and severe cuts to social benefits and policies. Aims: analyze the impacts of the pandemic on the mental health and quality of life on people living in contexts of high-levels of armed and lethal violence and social fragility. Methods: A longitudinal cohort study was undertaken with a convenient sample of fifty individuals who live in 16 favelas in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The interviews included enquired about the respondent’s capacity to cope with the pandemic and their access to services as well as questions about mental health (Brief Symptoms Inventory), and Quality of Life (Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life). Results: The results revealed a decrease in the somatization dimension of the BSI scale and a worsening on the objective index (SIX) of quality of life. Mental health distress increased more in the male group when compared to the female group during the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems likely; therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic presents a major challenge for people living in a context of urban violence and social deprivation. Conclusions: The worsening of mental distress and quality of life during the pandemic impacts both genders and suggests the need for policies directed to health and employment protection.

BackgroundLiving in informal settlements with extensive neighbourhood violence has been shown to be linked with poorer mental health. However, there is little evidence as to whether different levels of personal experiences and fears of neighbourhood violence within such settlements affect mental health. This study assessed such personal experiences and fears of residents in favelas in Brazil. We tested whether variations predict mental health symptoms and quality of life, and whether this is independent of the influence of sociodemographic characteristics and poverty. MethodsIn a population-based survey of adults living in a group of favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we assessed: sociodemographic characteristics; extent of personal experiences and fear of neighbourhood violence; mental health symptoms on the Brief Symptom Inventory; and quality of life on the Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life. Univariate and multivariate regressions were fit to predict mental health symptoms and quality of life. FindingsWe interviewed 1,211 residents. Both more experiences of neighbourhood violence and more fear of violence predicted higher levels of mental health symptoms and poorer quality of life. In multivariate regression analyses, the associations remained significant after adjusting for the influence of other factors, in particular female gender, younger age, and marked poverty. InterpretationEven within a context in which the whole population can be exposed to violence and economic disadvantage, individual variations in the experiences of violence still make a significant difference for mental distress and quality of life. Policies to improve mental health and quality of life of residents in informal settlements need to address risk factors separately, most importantly the personal experiences of violence and poverty. FundingEconomic and Social Research Council and Arts and Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom. AntecedentesViver em assentamentos informais, com ampla violência na vizinhança, parece estar associado a piores condições de saúde mental. No entanto, há poucas evidências de que, nestes locais, os diferentes níveis de experiências pessoais e o medo da violência na vizinhança afetem a saúde mental. Este estudo avaliou experiências pessoais e medos de moradores de favelas no Brasil. Testamos se tais variações predizem sintomas de saúde mental e qualidade de vida, e se isso é independente da influência das características sociodemográficas e da pobreza. MétodosCom base em um inquérito domiciliar de base populacional, realizado com adultos residentes em um grupo de favelas do Complexo da Maré, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, foram observadas: características sociodemográficas; a extensão das experiências pessoais de exposição à violência e o medo da violência na vizinhança; sintomas de saúde mental, a partir do Inventário de Sintomas Psicopatológicos (BSI); e qualidade de vida, a partir da escala Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life (MANSA). Regressões univariadas e multivariadas foram ajustadas para explicar variações nos sintomas de saúde mental e qualidade de vida. ResultadosEntrevistamos 1.211 pessoa adultas residentes na Maré. Tanto maiores níveis de exposição a experiências de violência na vizinhança quanto mais medo dessa violência estiveram relacionados a piores níveis de saúde mental (maior número e intensidade de sintomas no BSI) e pior qualidade de vida. Nas análises de regressão multivariada, tais associações permaneceram significativas mesmo após controlarmos pela influência de outros fatores, em particular sexo (feminino), idade (mais jovem) e pobreza acentuada. InterpretaçãoMesmo em um contexto no qual toda a população pode estar exposta à violência e a desvantagens materiais e econômicas, as variações individuais nas experiências de violência ainda assim fazem diferença significativa nas condições de sofrimento mental e qualidade de vida. Políticas para melhorar a saúde mental e a qualidade de vida dos residentes de assentamentos informais, como as favelas, precisam abordar fatores de risco separadamente focando, principalmente, na redução da exposição a experiências pessoais de violência e da pobreza. FinanciamentoEconomic and Social Research Council (ESRC) e Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), ambos do Reino Unido.

Este artigo visa analisar a utilização do conceito de patriarcado nas produções científicas brasileiras da área de saúde sobre as violências contra as mulheres e questionar em que medida artigos científicos dialogam ou não com o conceito de patriarcado em Heleith Saffioti. Além disso, ressalta a importância da formação dos profissionais que atendem mulheres vítimas de violência terem uma aproximação teórica dos estudos do patriarcado. O recurso metodológico utilizado foi o da revisão de literatura narrativa na base de dados Scielo e BVS-Regional. A amostra analisada permitiu dizer que, quando as produções científicas da área da saúde abordam o conceito de patriarcado, os achados ganham maior visibilidade do poder dos homens sobre as mulheres, as desigualdades entre os gêneros e a violência como uma construção social, histórica e cultural na sociedade patriarcal.