{"id":29861,"date":"2016-07-08T13:36:53","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T16:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=29861"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:08:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T15:08:06","slug":"dancing-with-the-devil-in-the-city-of-god-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=29861","title":{"rendered":"Dancing with the Devil in the City of God [Book Review]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Brazilian-born journalist Juliana Barbassa<\/a> presents a stunning profile of the paradoxically beautiful city that is Rio de Janeiro in her first book<\/span>, <\/span>Dancing with the Devil in the City of God<\/span><\/i><\/a>. The book, published in 2015, begins as\u00a0Barbassa returns to Rio in 2010 after 21 years living abroad, bringing\u00a0a unique combination of foreign and local perspective. The author had been working for the Associated Press<\/em> while living in the United States when she moved back to Brazil and began work as AP<\/em>\u2019s foreign correspondent in Rio.<\/span><\/p>\n

The book combines thorough historical context with engaging personal interviews to create an unapologetic portrait of Rio, one that embellishes the city\u2019s attractions without obscuring its flaws. The majority of social, political, and economic developments covered\u00a0take place with\u00a0Rio\u2019s preparations for the 2014 World Cup<\/a> and the 2016 Summer Olympics<\/a> as the backdrop. Frequently, sporting mega-events inflate the pockets of a few at the expense of many, and as Barbassa discovers, favelas throughout the city have suffered extensively. Forced evictions<\/a>, aggressive policing<\/a>, and empty promises<\/a> are just a few of the problems favela residents confront. Their collective plight constitutes a significant portion of the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

Police occupations and UPPs<\/h3>\n

One of the author\u2019s earliest moments of culture shock in Brazil occurs during her intense narration of the police invasion<\/a>\u00a0of Vila Cruzeiro<\/a>, a favela\u00a0bordering Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>in the North Zone<\/a><\/span>. Upon seeing body bags leaving the battle, the author asks a police officer how many deaths there have been, to which he replies, \u201cNo one died\u2026 Just criminals.\u201d Barbassa shows that this steadfast polarization of “us versus them” is reinforced with one of Rio\u2019s many contradictions<\/span>\u2014by law, there is no death penalty, but \u201cjust looking like someone\u2019s idea of a criminal\u201d is enough for a security officer\u00a0to justify murder.<\/span><\/p>\n

One interview during the same Vila Cruzeiro invasion features\u00a0a man who had been hit in the leg with a stray bullet, stranded on the street without a phone, money, or a way to walk up the hill back home to his family. He was bandaged by the hospital but still had the bullet lodged in his calf. The divergence from a policy\u2019s stated\u00a0purpose<\/a> in theory to its application in practice<\/a> is a frequent theme of Barbassa\u2019s interviews and stories. Each Pacifying Police Unit<\/a>\u00a0(UPP)\u00a0was supposed to disrupt the control of drug gangs<\/a>\u00a0in order\u00a0to make communities safer; yet under the UPP units those who suffer most are often neither police nor trafficker.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"UPP<\/a><\/p>\n

In order to explore the full effect of the UPPs in Rio<\/a>,<\/span>\u00a0the book turns to the South Zone<\/a> favela of Santa Marta<\/a>, the first “pacified”\u00a0community<\/a>. Local business association leader Andr\u00e9ia Roberto explains that without the drug gang\u2019s control, businesses can register with the City\u00a0and delivery trucks will bring inventory shipments all the way to one\u2019s storefront rather than just to the bottom of the favela\u2019s hill. Barber Jos\u00e9 do Carmo became known locally as the \u201cEike of Santa Marta,\u201d in reference to the Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista, for the way he seized entrepreneurship\u00a0opportunities following the UPP installation and legalized his business. But Leidemar Barreto, mother of six, saw her monthly rent payments rise<\/a> from R$90\u00a0to R$180, leaving her completely dependent on the social welfare program\u00a0Bolsa Fam\u00edlia<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

The anecdotes show the State\u2019s willingness to offer a version of security to neighborhoods\u00a0<\/span>yet simultaneously make\u00a0no effort to provide reliable access to utilities such as\u00a0water<\/a>, electricity<\/a>, quality transportation<\/a>, and more. Barbassa\u00a0articulates this contradiction and dismisses the one-dimensional measures frequently used by policymakers to obscure the reality of life in favelas, such as a \u201cpurely economic definition of class\u201d to prove that all UPP favelas had also been given a \u201cmiddle-class quality of life.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Evictions and removals<\/h3>\n

Barbassa\u00a0gives a detailed account of select cases of community resistance<\/a> to forced eviction for real estate development<\/a>, a salient concern for many favelas as the city approaches the Olympics. Favela do Metr\u00f4<\/a><\/span>, Aldeia Maracan\u00e3<\/a>\u00a0(not a favela, but an indigenous occupation), and\u00a0Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a><\/span>\u00a0are some of the main examples\u00a0within this segment. The tone of the book’s narrative itself captures the initial sense of naive optimism towards the approaching Olympics as a potential \u201ccatalyst for change,\u201d an attitude that slowly devolves into disappointment. In the same way, many favelas were optimistic about the city\u2019s ambitious upgrading plans until \u201cfunding simply failed to materialize\u201d and these promises were all withdrawn<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Promising ideas such as the favela upgrading program\u00a0Morar Carioca<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>or the community-produced proposals as alternatives to eviction<\/a> consistently concluded fruitlessly at the hands of Rio\u2019s government and its “state of exception<\/a>.” What did emerge, however, was the power of community cohesion to combat unlawful treatment by the City. Barbassa\u2019s stories of proposal and counterproposal, eviction and hollow justification, demonstrate a cyclical pattern. As the pre-Olympic urgency to meet\u00a0deadlines intensified, these evictions began happening faster<\/a> and more often. Some stories end painfully unfairly, but Vila Aut\u00f3dromo offers\u00a0a powerful precedent by retaliating with social organization. This mega-event chapter of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo’s\u00a0decades-long struggle to remain<\/a>\u00a0continues today, and remains an exceptional success against land developers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Vila<\/a><\/p>\n

Inequality continues<\/h3>\n

The World Cup and the Olympics presented an opportunity for the city of Rio to address countless social and economic issues that have plagued the city for generations. As the World Cup came to a close, not only had Brazil not found glory on the pitch\u00a0but these same essential issues had still not been solved, awaiting acknowledgement from a defeated Brazil. The final chapter of Barbassa\u2019s book describes the nationwide identity crisis after the 7-1 loss to Germany, in which Brazilians question their reputation as the <\/span>pa\u00eds do futebol<\/span><\/i>\u2014the country of soccer. W<\/span>hen the book concludes, two years from the Olympics, and through to today, just a month from the Games, these same questions of addressing the city\u2019s inequalities are as pertinent as ever. <\/span><\/p>\n

In an\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0from June of this year,<\/span>\u00a0the author describes the city as \u201cone that I think is more unequal than the city that we had before these mega-events,\u201d yet the hard times are prompting civil society, from everyday citizens to\u00a0organizations–including favela residents citywide–to fight for more positive transformations\u00a0by demanding their basic rights.<\/span><\/p>\n

Juliana Barbassa is currently in Rio de Janeiro observing the impact of the Games and writing for a number of outlets\u00a0through September. In Brazil,\u00a0Dancing With the Devil in the City of God<\/em>\u00a0is available at Livraria Saraiva<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Brazilian-born journalist Juliana Barbassa presents a stunning profile of the paradoxically beautiful city that is Rio de Janeiro in her first book, Dancing with the Devil in the City of God. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":30008,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1293,1736,1277,335,1334,1329],"tags":[646,109,756,19,11,1259,147,37,5,15,10,270,66,156,30,4,31,167],"writer":[2103],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-1736","9":"category-uppwatch","10":"category-policies","11":"category-reviews","12":"category-by-international-observers","13":"tag-aldeia-maracana","14":"tag-community-business","15":"tag-community-organizing","16":"tag-favela-do-metro","17":"tag-forced-evictions","18":"tag-mega-events","19":"tag-morar-carioca","20":"tag-north-zone","21":"tag-olympics","22":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","23":"tag-real-estate-speculation","24":"tag-resistance","25":"tag-santa-marta","26":"tag-south-zone","27":"tag-urban-violence","28":"tag-vila-autodromo","29":"tag-vila-cruzeiro","30":"tag-world-cup","31":"writer-christopher-peel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81363,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29861\/revisions\/81363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29861"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=29861"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=29861"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=29861"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=29861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}