{"id":30634,"date":"2016-07-25T23:02:22","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T02:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=30634"},"modified":"2016-07-25T23:02:22","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T02:02:22","slug":"the-olympic-blow-debate-discusses-rios-urban-transformation-in-olympic-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=30634","title":{"rendered":"“The Olympic Blow” Debate Discusses Rio’s Urban Transformation in Olympic Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Thursday July 21, the Anthropology Nucleus at Rio Federal University’s Institute for Philosophy and Social Sciences (UFRJ\/IFCS) hosted an event entitled “The city in the time of cholera: the Olympic blow<\/a>” to discuss urban transformation in Rio de Janeiro and the legacy<\/a> of the 2016 Olympic Games<\/a> in the city. The panel consisted of\u00a0Cl\u00e1udio Rezende Ribeiro, adjunct professor at UFRJ\u2019s department of urbanism and environment, Julia O\u2019Donnell, researcher and anthropology professor at UFRJ and Heloisa Helena Costa Berto<\/a>, a Candombl\u00e9<\/a> practitioner and former resident of\u00a0Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cl\u00e1udio Rezende Ribeiro began the debate affirming\u00a0that\u00a0mega-events<\/a> like the Olympics and the World Cup have served as catalysts for an ongoing transformation\u00a0of the city, \u201ca concretization of something that was already happening.\u201d He argued that over the last decade, Rio has been built\u00a0on the basis of \u201ca logic of emergency,\u201d and that the city itself has become ephemeral and fast-paced.<\/p>\n

Julia O’Donnell discussed her recent research project in Barra da Tijuca<\/a>\u00a0in the West Zone<\/a>, the neighborhood that has been most obviously transformed as a result of the Olympics. O’Donnell argues that these transformations are not only physical but symbolic as well. She spoke of the area’s “symbolic redesign” and the City’s aim of creating a new financial center in the city. She outlined the example of\u00a0the area, now renamed Barra Ol\u00edmpica, surrounding\u00a0the newly built Ilha Pura<\/a> condominium. This renaming, along with the transformed landscape, is an attempt to remove the area’s\u00a0socio-cultural history which previously included favela and fishing communities.<\/p>\n

\"Plans<\/p>\n

Heloisa Helena Costa Berto, also known by her spiritual name of Luizinha\u00a0da Nan\u00e3, fought for years to remain in her home and spiritual center in Vila Aut\u00f3dromo until it was\u00a0demolished by the City on February 24, 2016<\/a>. The removal of communities like Vila Aut\u00f3dromo, she said, is not a new phenomenon. The problem, she lamented, is that the rich want to live far away from the poor because of a history filled with prejudice<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cWe live in a country, in a city, which is extremely prejudiced, prejudiced with respect to religion<\/a>, prejudiced with respect to race<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The debate opened up for questions from the audience, which\u00a0covered issues including private security projects, the formation of favela networks and resistance<\/a> movements, forced evictions<\/a>\u00a0and Olympic legacies internationally.<\/p>\n

Heloisa Helena spoke of\u00a0the intimidation techniques<\/a>\u00a0used to evict residents in\u00a0Vila Aut\u00f3dromo, such as pitting neighbors against neighbors<\/a> and using techniques to diminish the force of the resistance movement.<\/p>\n

Cl\u00e1udio discussed the privatization of the city<\/a> and various strategies that are put in place to hide the poor<\/a>, a practice that is \u201ctraditional with globalization.\u201d He argued that social configurations in Rio de Janeiro are marked by\u00a0the city’s history of slavery<\/a> and \u201cthe permanence of a prejudiced relationship that is very strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding future Olympics and potential rights violations going forward, Heloisa suggested the UN take action<\/a>\u00a0in such situations, saying:\u00a0\u201cThe UN, as an international organ, should put itself on the front line.\u201d Claudio also highlighted the necessity of considering the broader context of the city and the growth of\u00a0resistance movements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Thursday July 21, the Anthropology Nucleus at Rio Federal University’s Institute for Philosophy and Social Sciences (UFRJ\/IFCS) hosted an event entitled “The city in the time of cholera: the Olympic blow” to discuss urban […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":28394,"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":[1736,1333,1329],"tags":[9,225,1396,842,272,11,188,25,1452,1259,5,558,141,1189,10,1402,4,21],"writer":[2133],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-30634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-1736","8":"category-event-reports","9":"category-by-international-observers","10":"tag-9","11":"tag-barra-da-tijuca","12":"tag-criminalization-of-poverty","13":"tag-debate","14":"tag-mayor-eduardo-paes","15":"tag-forced-evictions","16":"tag-history","17":"tag-human-rights","18":"tag-ilha-pura","19":"tag-mega-events","20":"tag-olympics","21":"tag-prejudice","22":"tag-privatization","23":"tag-racism","24":"tag-real-estate-speculation","25":"tag-legacy","26":"tag-vila-autodromo","27":"tag-west-zone","28":"writer-alix-vadot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30634","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\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30634"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=30634"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=30634"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=30634"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=30634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}