The AAG Review of Books
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The Spectacular Favela: Violence in Modern Brazil
Jamie L. Worms
To cite this article: Jamie L. Worms (2017) The Spectacular Favela: Violence in Modern Brazil,
The AAG Review of Books, 5:1, 13-16, DOI: 10.1080/2325548X.2017.1257269
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/2325548X.2017.1257269
Published online: 17 Jan 2017.
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The AAG Review OF BOOKS
The Spectacular Favela:
Violence in Modern Brazil
Erika Robb Larkins. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press,
2015. xi and 256 pp., maps,
photos, diagrams, illustrations,
notes, bibliography, index.
$29.95 paper (ISBN 978-0-52028277-3).
Reviewed by Jamie L. Worms,
Department of Geosciences,
Georgia State University,
Atlanta, GA.
In The Spectacular Favela: Violence in
Modern Brazil, author Erika Robb Larkins draws on her ethnographic field
work to demonstrate how violence is
produced through spectacle and commodification in Rocinha, Rio’s largest favela. Divided into five chapters, this
well-written book hits on a number of timely and pertinent issues facing the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Despite
the lack of statistical data and in-depth analysis of some
of the larger points, this ethnography provides an accessible and informative overview of commodification and
structural violence in the favela arena today. Overall, I
expected to learn how spectacular violence is perpetuated
in the favelas of Rio and Larkins delivers a perspective
based on the narrative of several diverse actors.
Larkins sets out to explain how performance and the
spectacle of violence are deeply embedded in Brazilian
and global cultures. Larkins explains that ideologies and
practices concerning land and slave ownership that favored a minority of privileged elite during the colonial
period continue to influence the racial and class hierarchies present in Brazilian society today. The deeply embedded prejudice and marginalization that divides the
Brazilian populace has helped to construct what Larkins
refers to as the “favela problem,” a consciousness in which
favelas, and their residents, exist as a
hindrance to urban development due
to their imagined disease, poverty, informality, and violence. Intrinsically,
the culture of slavery, which was successfully maintained through terror
and spectacular punishment, continues to inform the favela problem today
in different forms.
One way by which structural violence
is maintained in Brazilian society is
through the drug traffickers. Larkins
explains that the lack of governance
in Rio’s favelas provides fertile ground
for the trafficker rule and produces “a
steady stream of alienated youth . . .
willing to take up arms in search of respect and economic solvency” (p. 33).
To prove this point, Larkins introduces Beto, one of her
primary informants. Beto “spent six years in the Special
Forces wing of the military, learning from the government how to kill” before leaving the military to join the
Comando Vermelho, one of the main drug trafficking factions in Rio (p. 29). Despite being gainfully employed by
the government as a soldier in the military, and therefore
not completely alienated, Beto claimed “hunger” as the
driving force for his departure to join the traffic. Larkins
knows this is “somewhat difficult to believe” (p. 31) and
explains:
He laughed aloud at the irony that he could have ended
up fighting for the other side, hunting a parallel version
of himself. But his experience with the government—
shaped by his marginalized class and racial status—led
him to believe that the drug economy actually represented a more stable and honorable employment than
the police force. (pp. 30–31)
Larkins articulates a well-reasoned explanation for why
Beto left the military, including the idea that Beto joined
the traffic for financial security and honor. Because Beto
The AAG Review of Books 5(1) 2017, pp. 13–16. doi: 10.1080/2325548X.2017.1257269.
©2017 by American Association of Geographers. Published by Taylor & Francis, LLC.
only cites hunger as his motive for leaving, though, I am
unclear as to whether or not Beto has actually reached
the same conclusion as the author.
Beto did provide exceptional insight on the structural
violence in the favela and how it is perpetuated through
actual draconian violence. Despite a physical and symbolic presence of traffickers throughout the community,
according to Beto, Rocinha has virtually no unsanctioned crime. In Rocinha, however, it is commonplace for
traffickers to govern and maintain order by meting out
“sanctioned, socially acceptable,” and spectacular punishments that include beating, torture, beheading, and
microwaving (being burned alive inside of tires). In exchange for this order, residents remain silent about the
drug trafficking operations. This “forced reciprocity” protects the traffickers’ business interests and enhances their
power within the community. In this way, drug traffickers
reinforce structural violence in the favela by maintaining
order through violent punishment.
picture-perfect and performative invasion on social media. As Larkins expertly points out, the entire spectacle of
invasion is undermined not only by the obvious advanced
warning, but also by the continued trafficker rule.
There are several obvious similarities between the drug
traffickers and the penal state that are not addressed in
this book. Although the narco-traffic and the penal state
exist on opposite ends of the legal spectrum, both groups
claim professionalism and modernity, and exercise wealth
and corruption to conduct their affairs. Both groups make
rules, declare the exception to their own rules, kill with
relative impunity, and engage in extreme performative
armed violence (and torture) to justify their development goals. Both groups are equally entrenched in the
same profit-driven war on drugs that kills traffickers and
police alike. A discussion of the tremendous overlap between the traffickers and the penal state would have only
strengthened and clarified the point that both groups,
very similarly, reproduce the spectacularly violent favela
in different ways.
The drug traffickers are not the only group to embody
violent spectacle as a means to provide security. In chapter 2, “The Penal State,” Larkins uses a discussion of the
military police and civil police, but primarily the Batalhão
de Operações Policias Especiais (BOPE), as representatives
for the larger penal state as the police impose and normalize a structural violence that helps to maintain favela
residents’ marginalization. It should be noted that Larkins
wrote this chapter without interviewing any police officers. As such, this chapter is written from the perspective
of narcotics traffickers and residents rather than any state
actor. Larkins points out that the penal state is not designed to protect the rights of citizens or to ensure justice.
Rather, the penal state is designed to violently and spectacularly maintain entrenched class divisions and uphold
the status quo through theft, murder, and collusion with
drug traffickers.
In chapter 3, Larkins examines the spectacular violence
created by the commodification of the favelas through the
marketing of film, video games, music videos, clothing,
and toys. Referring to a term used by Jean Baudrillard,
Larkins explains how media depictions of Rio are often
“hyper-real” and “more compelling, brilliant, and vivid
than the original” (p. 84). To prove that films emphasize
certain unsavory aspects of favela life, Larkins critiques
six films—not “seven” as she claims (p. 85). The choice
to critique the films—Black Orpheus, City of God, Elite
Squad, Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within, Favela Rising,
and Bus 174—is an unnecessary departure from her rich
field work. As opposed to a critique of films, I would have
preferred more ethnographic accounts from Beto and the
other informants the author met during the six years she
lived and researched in the community.
In Rocinha, the police employ an aggressive, heavyhanded ideology in which favela residents are disposable and “acceptable casualties in the war against traffic”
(p. 68). Because the police are motivated by the demands
of the city to control crime, they often claim bodies and
drugs during invasions, which are “highly choreographed
performances of state power” (p. 56). By the time the police enter the community, most traffickers, who had been
warned about the invasion days in advance, are gone, and
the narcotics are left in neatly stacked piles for the police
to confiscate. After the invasion, the BOPE showcases
its modernity and efficiency by symbolically reordering the chaos of favela criminality by reproducing their
According to Larkins, these films produced by middleand upper class Brazilians present a hyperreal version of
urban marginality in Rio through a genre called cinema
de retomada, which translates to “cinema of retaking”
or reclaiming favela culture (p. 87). Despite its name,
this genre reifies the violent, criminal, uncivilized, and
unsanitary favela population. Larkins’s overall point is
that filmmakers and the media commodify hyperreal
imagery of the favela to sell as a global brand, which
she dubs Favela, Inc. By presenting a hyperreal and selective imagery of the favela, the media simultaneously
obscures discourses of race, socioeconomic status, and
other historical issues. As such, the commodification of
14
THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS
the favelas by outsiders and nonresidents normalizes and
sensationalizes violent crime and becomes yet another
form of favela violence.
Just as film can embellish certain aspects of favela life,
tourism is also implicated in the ongoing production of
favela violence through voyeurism and the glorification of
the drug trafficking lifestyle. In chapter 4, Larkins argues
that tourism is an insidious and performative encounter that engages a limited perspective of favela life and
permits tourists to reify the violent favela by consuming
and reproducing it on social media. Similarly, many tour
companies use tactics of fear and excitement to fabricate
authenticity of favela life, thereby emphasizing violence
and crime for their customers. As a whole, the tourist gaze
permitted through one-dimensional narratives obscures
real structural violence including the lack of opportunity, long history of police abuse, discrimination, poverty,
and understanding how trafficking presents an attainable
option for favela youth. Although I personally have always had a distaste for favela tourism, Larkins’s chapter
made me loathe the practice, and those who engage in it,
even more.
Although Larkins’s points and examples are extremely
cogent, a discussion comparing the obvious similarities
between Favela, Inc. and favela tourism was noticeably
absent. The representation of favelas in the media, film,
games, clothes, and toys has indeed created a market both
inside and outside of the favela. Filmmakers, journalists,
researchers, tour guides, and clothing and toy manufacturers all share the responsibility to represent the favela
community. Yet, caught between their hyperrealizations
and their desire to make a profit, Favela, Inc. undermines
the authenticity of the favelas community and contributes to its spectacular, violent commodification.
In chapter 5, Larkins discusses how the World Cup and
the Olympic Games have perpetuated the spectacle of
violence through militarization of power and economic
speculation. Specifically, Larkins discusses “the Olympic exception,” an idea behind which a city is able to
capitalize on its position as the prestigious host of a
global event to transform the city “with a speed and
tenor” that would otherwise be “financially and politically impossible” (p. 140). Part of this Olympic exception has been a peacekeeping effort that involves the
implementation of Units of Police Pacification (UPP)
into favela communities. Despite its result as a “spectacular failure,” the implementation of the UPP has had
several consequences.
WINTER 2017
The government originally pitched the UPP as a way to
transform “local attitudes of hostility and distrust [toward the police] into relationships of collaboration and
cooperation” (p. 141). Replacing one armed force (traffic) for another, less trusted, and less respected armed
force, however, reactivated the paternalistic ties that
governed the community before pacification. Not only
did residents avoid the UPP for fear that they would be
punished when the traffickers returned, but they continued to rely on the traffic to “arbitrate disputes” and
“discipline residents” (p. 143). I found it interesting that
it is not a question of whether the traffic will retake
control of the community; it is simply a question of
when. Or, perhaps the real question is whether or not
the traffickers have ever left.
Overall, the UPP has made a very small impact concerning the governance of the favela. Rocinha is still run by
the narco-traffic with an appearance that it is run by the
penal state. This smokescreen has allowed new companies and services to create and redefine new territories of
consumption in the community. In this sense, pacification has led to the increasing formality of the community
residents through the regularization of services. Nevertheless, upgrading funds are not being used to address the
larger issues concerning health, sanitation, education,
and infrastructure created in the state’s absence. Larkins
argues that these solutions are not visible to those outside
the favela, and therefore, do not contribute to the “marketing of the pacified favela as a global brand” (p. 150).
In essence, communities like Rocinha are limited to superficial gentrifying upgrades that include painting and
renaming streets, which are seen by Larkins, and others,
as obvious attempts to cloak the ongoing reality of poverty and violence.
In the epilogue, Larkins discusses the wider theoretical implications for the study of violence in Brazil. This
content might have been better presented embedded at
the end of each chapter as a summary. Conscious of her
privileged mobility, education, and status as an anthropological researcher, Larkins acknowledges that as she
wrote this book, she was not only capable of inventing
the favela, but that she, too, was complicit in the contribution to Favela, Inc. through the sale of this book.
Unlike most favela residents, Larkins has the power to
present the favela to outsiders. Although it is clear that
Larkins takes this responsibility very seriously, even she
inadvertently contributes to the conceptualization of
the violent favela. At the end of Larkins’s research, she
chose to live outside the community when writing her
book. She remarks, “during the writing of this book, I
15
lived in a nice neighborhood in Rio, outside the favela”
(p. 162), not so subtly hinting that the favelas are not
nice places.
Overall, this book is an ethnography that discusses the
commodification of the spectacular violence in Rocinha. Larkins makes a very compelling case as to how
the traffickers, police, film, tourism, and the UPP all
16
simultaneously contribute to the commodification and
violence of the favela communities. The only two things
that would have made this book stronger are an in-depth
comparison of similar actors and the contribution of statistical information to support her claims. If you are interested in understanding the complex dynamics that exist
within the favela arena in Rio, The Spectacular Favela:
Violence in Modern Brazil is a great place to start.
THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS