{"id":32312,"date":"2016-10-03T07:40:10","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T10:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=32312"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:07:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T15:07:06","slug":"favelization-and-the-appropriation-of-favelas-in-international-design-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=32312","title":{"rendered":"Favelization and the Appropriation of Favelas in International Design [BOOK REVIEW]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Design academic\u00a0<\/span>Adriana Kertzer<\/a> was born to an American mother and a first generation Brazilian father. Not fully embraced as a Brazilian or American, <\/span>Kertzer\u2019s sense of displacement makes her especially sensitive to nationalistic language, and consequently skeptical about generalizations of what is \u201cBrazilian.\u201d Her book <\/span>Favelization<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/i>explores the process by which favelas have been made synonymous with Brazil and used to <\/span>brand luxury items as \u201cBrazilian\u201d to non-Brazilian audiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Favelization <\/span><\/i>successfully shows that the increasing global\u2013and as a consequence, local\u2013interest in favelas is in fact an interest in a mystified and imagined image of \u201cthe Favela.\u201d In reality, the produced images of \u201cthe Favela\u201d bear little resemblance to real favelas, and no meaningful interaction occurs between favela residents, producers<\/a> of luxury products that reference favelas, and consumers of these products.<\/span><\/p>\n

How favelas are mystified and othered<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It is hard to mystify or other what is invisible. <\/span>Kertzer believes that the increased global visibility of favelas was crucial to the creation of the idea of Favela. It is through visual access that favelas were first\u00a0<\/span>demystified and then re-mystified, in the process becoming exotic, mysterious and full of secrets.<\/p>\n

Non-Brazilians often cite the 2002 movie\u00a0City of God<\/span><\/em><\/a> as how they came to know favelas. <\/span>However, movies are an interpretation of reality and not reality itself. <\/span>Kertzer discusses in detail the process of interpretation and transcendence in the internationally acclaimed films <\/span>City of God<\/span><\/em> and 2010 documentary\u00a0<\/span>Waste Land<\/span><\/a><\/em>. She points to the biases of the films\u2019 directors and producers and how their knowledge of global perceptions of Brazil and the global market might have influenced the lens through which they represented\u00a0favelas. However, by using documentary film techniques (though City of God<\/em> is fiction) the films give the illusion of reality.<\/span> Kertzer draws a parallel between this and New Deal photography<\/a> from the 1930s in the United States. To most audiences, the over dramatization of favela life and the over simplification of its issues in these films is undetected. The result <\/span>is an exoticized and vulgarized depiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

How favelas became a Brazilian trademark<\/strong><\/h3>\n

With the films\u2019 success came more attention to favelas. Though informal communities\u00a0are not a solely Brazilian phenomenon, <\/span>Kertzer says: \u201cThe permeability of identity means that when a particular aspect of Brazilian society not commonly deemed ‘desirable’ becomes popular outside of Brazil, this external attention often results in a reframing of attitudes within the country. Such as the case with favelas.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Favela<\/a>Through favelization favelas became accepted as a part of what makes Brazil, like Copacabana and samba. The Favela became a local “product” that can be commodified and used globally. In the process each favela loses its individuality to the generalized and all (non)representative \u201cFavela.\u201d This then led to\u00a0the rise of favela chic, favela tours<\/a> and an increased appeal of luxury products somehow linked to the Favela. <\/span><\/p>\n

Kertzer uses the “<\/span>Favela Chair<\/a>“<\/span> by the Brazilian designers the Campana brothers to show how\u00a0<\/span>references to favelas are used to market a luxury item as \u201cBrazilian\u201d and by extension \u201cexotic\u201d when in reality that item is not remotely connected to favelas or their residents or even Brazil. The Campana brothers are extensively examined in <\/span>Favelization <\/span><\/i>because of their global reception as specifically Brazilian designers inspired by Brazil and because of their influence on younger designers such as Brunno Jahara<\/a> and David Elia<\/a>. Both Jahara and Elia have collections inspired by the Favela<\/a>, and both have lived part of their lives outside Brazil, understanding in the process the international demand for items somehow related to \u201cthe other<\/a>.\u201d Like the Campana brothers, Jahara and Elia reference favelas in their work, \u201c<\/span>blending strategic references to Brazil\u2019s poverty with fantasy and desire in the service of commerce.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The disconnect of favelization<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Following blogs and writings on one of Jahara\u2019s collections, Neorustica<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Kertzer found that the majority of\u00a0coverage\u00a0simply paraphrased information from Jahara\u2019s website. This is problematic because <\/span>Brazilians and foreign designers, marketers\u00a0and filmmakers “interpret and appropriate favelas, often producing something hybrid, something that merely touches on reality but does not reproduce it.\u201d Acceptance of what is produced and its\u00a0blind\u00a0dissemination combined with the lack of accountability further globalizes the language and imagery of favelization, and further propagates misappropriations of favelas.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Producers of luxury products occasionally interact with favela residents, such was the case with Lacoste and the Coopa-Roca cooperative<\/a>\u00a0in Rocinha<\/a> in Rio’s South Zone<\/a>. Lacoste teamed up with the Campana brothers to produce limited edition shirts designed with Lacoste alligators sewn by women from the Coopa-Roca cooperative. The company paid Coopa-Roca for its services, not more. Yet, in its publicity material and subsequent interviews, it suggested that Coopa-Roca was a charity, implying by extension that buying a t-shirt from Lacoste would somehow be a socially responsible purchase due to the benefit it would bring to the women in Rocinha. In reality, it was a business venture made to look like a charity through the process of favelization.<\/p>\n

In examining these cases and the appropriation of the favela aesthetic in luxury design,\u00a0Favelization\u00a0<\/em>provides a necessary critical look at the ways in which favelas are othered and exoticized for consumption. Kertzer successfully argues that by coopting and exploiting the international brand image of favelas, designers are engaging in a process of “interpretation, transcendence and domination” of the real lived experience and culture of these communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Design academic\u00a0Adriana Kertzer was born to an American mother and a first generation Brazilian father. Not fully embraced as a Brazilian or American, Kertzer\u2019s sense of displacement makes her especially sensitive […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":32783,"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":[1288,1268,1271,1334,1329],"tags":[1448,2257,852,231,1522,504,2258,427,1634,503,221,857,602,12,156,21],"writer":[2143],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-favelaculture","9":"category-favelaqualities","10":"category-reviews","11":"category-by-international-observers","12":"tag-favelasareassets","13":"tag-appropriation","14":"tag-book","15":"tag-city-of-god","16":"tag-cultural-production","17":"tag-culture","18":"tag-design","19":"tag-economy","20":"tag-exploitation","21":"tag-fashion","22":"tag-favela-culture","23":"tag-favela-design","24":"tag-film","25":"tag-rocinha","26":"tag-south-zone","27":"tag-west-zone","28":"writer-nashwa-al-sharki"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32312","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\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81360,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32312\/revisions\/81360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32312"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=32312"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=32312"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=32312"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=32312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}