{"id":43472,"date":"2018-05-18T13:53:19","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T16:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=43472"},"modified":"2025-09-13T14:08:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T17:08:53","slug":"rocinha-historicas-walking-museum-sustainablefavelanetwork-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=43472","title":{"rendered":"Rocinha’s Historical Walking Museum [PROFILE] #SustainableFavelaNetwork"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Initiative<\/span><\/strong>: Historical Rocinha (Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica)
\nContact<\/strong><\/span>:\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Email<\/a>
\nYear Founded<\/span><\/strong>: 2014
\nCommunity<\/strong><\/span>: Rocinha
\nMission<\/strong><\/span>: Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica is a cultural\/historical tour that offers the opportunity to positively experience the daily life of the Rocinha favela, with more than 100,000 residents, by taking walks through Rocinha\u2019s alleys and side streets.
\nPublic Events<\/strong><\/span>: Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica publishes upcoming tour dates on its Facebook page; attendance can be scheduled via WhatsApp (+55 21 99099 7006) or Facebook. On May 19<\/a>, Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica will celebrate National Museum Week<\/a> with a Rocinha walking tour and roundtable discussion on \u201cMemory, Community-Based Tours, and Violations of Rights.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cRocinha is enormous. And her history is even bigger.\u201d So goes Fernando Ermiro\u2019s introduction to Rocinha<\/a>, the largest and one of the best-known of Rio’s favelas, in the city’s South Zone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If anyone can speak to the community\u2019s history<\/a>, he’s the one. Born and raised in Rocinha\u2014he calls himself \u201cindigenous\u201d to the community\u2014Ermiro graduated with a degree in History from the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro (PUC<\/a>). Despite attending a selective, private university, Ermiro found his history courses lacking. \u201cWithin the history curriculum, what interested me? The history of Brazil, the history of the Americas\u2014nothing made sense. I didn\u2019t identify at all; I shared no identity with that history. The history of Brazil does not have anything to do with the Brazilian people<\/a>.\u201d From this critique of mainstream history studies came Ermiro\u2019s desire to focus on the stories of his own community<\/a>, its social history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Ermiro coordinates two interlinked projects that promote this mission. The older of the two, the\u00a0Sankofa Museum<\/a>, was\u00a0built over a decade by Rocinha residents<\/a>\u00a0to create a \u201ccollective memory<\/a>,\u201d preserving \u201cthe people, the stories, how they lived, why they came [to Rocinha], the way they made a living, how their lives were before. All of this.\u201d The Sankofa Museum grew from a series of meetings to a published book<\/a>, a website<\/a>, and partnerships with organizations ranging from national, such as the Brazilian Institute of Museums,<\/a>\u00a0to local, such as the Mar\u00e9 Museum<\/a>\u00a0and the Favela Museum.<\/a>\u00a0From this experience with community museums<\/a> came the idea of developing a \u201cwalking museum.\u201d Four years ago, Ermiro and his Sankofa Museum partner, Ant\u00f4nio Carlos Firmino, created Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica. However people typically conceive of history, Ermiro says, \u201cvirtually, or in writing, or academically\u2026 we do walking.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Community-led favela tours<\/a> such as Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica are working to replace what Ermiro and many critics of jeep tours<\/a>\u00a0run by non-locals call \u201csafari tourism.\u201d Ermiro says he created Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica, in part, to \u201cescape this predatory model\u201d that had taken root since foreigners began visiting Rocinha in 1992. It made him uncomfortable, \u201cas if we were a jungle\u201d that tourists could watch and take photographs of from a jeep or van. \u201cSo we proposed creating an experience. Live my life. Don\u2019t judge me. You can judge me afterwards,\u201d he laughs. But first, \u201cat least know how it is here.\u201d Repeating the Portuguese version of the popular saying, Ermiro says that before you judge another person, you need to walk a mile in their shoes.<\/p>\n

To achieve this, Ermiro meets tour groups at the S\u00e3o Conrado<\/a> metro station. From there he tells the general story of Rocinha and helps the group visualize, geographically, the route they will take through the community. During the approximately two and a half hour tour, Ermiro\u2019s hope is for groups to feel the \u201csensation\u201d of what it is like to be in Rocinha, first through the impact of the size and geography of the space and \u201cthen, upon entering the community, of the people, noise, motorcycles<\/a>, cars\u2026 The dynamics of the place.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a hiatus earlier this year, due in part to insecurity and police operations in Rocinha<\/a>, the team restarted tours this month. Ermiro takes groups to the top of Rocinha, then walks them through the alleys, which he calls the true \u201cexperience of Rocinha\u2026 Your first entrance is one experience, but 90% of Rocinha\u2019s streets are alleys.\u201d Ermiro wants visitors to experience this \u201cimmersion,\u201d to enter Rocinha\u2019s \u201csocial history,\u201d and to understand the questions about Rocinha\u2019s history that he and his neighbors have been answering though their process of articulating collective memory<\/a>. This means starting at the very beginning with the Tupis, the indigenous<\/a> people who first occupied this territory, and working all the way to Rocinha\u2019s current residents. \u201cThis more recent history is also part of the history of Rocinha\u2026 And as we say, memory is today. Memory is not just looking behind. So, what is happening today is already memory that will enter our tour route\u2026 Employment<\/a>, work<\/a>, access, education<\/a>\u2014all of this is recent memory. We have to talk about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

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To this end, he reasons, \u201cthe question of the museum is not just memory. It is looking ahead, to social questions\u2026 How can I transform this? So, first, capture this memory. Then make use of it<\/a>.\u201d Throughout history, old and recent, Ermiro emphasizes that \u201cthe favela is the city\u2026 They are extremely connected\u2026 And they always were.\u201d<\/p>\n

In comparing the Sankofa Museum and Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica, Ermiro makes a distinction. \u201cThe museum has always been well-received,\u201d while Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica \u201cwas born with the idea, precisely, of basically confronting carioca<\/em> society.\u201d As he describes it, Cariocas\u2014natives of Rio\u2014”are very prejudiced in their relationship to favelas<\/a>. Cariocas do not want to come to favelas\u2026 People come from S\u00e3o Paulo, from Minas [Gerais], from the United States, from France, but Cariocas do not want to.\u201d As a response, Ermiro says, \u201cwe opened this alternative path: come get to know the favelas. And come see what life is like on the other side\u2026 We teach that the best way of getting to know the other side is to cross the bridge. So come see how it is here.\u201d To overcome all of Rio residents\u2019 preconceptions about favelas, Ermiro believes, \u201cwe have to have conversations\u2026 to open this dialogue.\u201d Ermiro admits that this is not easy. Cariocas, he says, \u201cresist.\u201d \u201cThe world comes [to the favela],\u201d he says with a laugh, \u201cbut Rio de Janeiro maintains this distance.\u201d<\/p>\n

That’s not to say that the prejudices against favelas are insurmountable: Ermiro says he has witnessed an increase in younger people, largely middle-class college students, visiting. \u201cSo then in five, ten, fifteen years, it will change\u2026 There is confrontation now, but later there will be an opening.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica\u2019s focus on social history does not only serve visitors to Rocinha. Ermiro has been able to answer \u201cquestions from [his] childhood,\u201d learning about everything from how the streets in his community got their names to why his own house was built<\/a> the way it was. Ermiro says he always used to ask his mother, who built their home, why she didn\u2019t build it more quickly. It was through Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica that he came to understand that for \u201ca minimum-wage domestic worker, illiterate with seven children,\u201d it was impossible to build the whole house at once. Not only were construction materials expensive, but residents also had to (and still have to) pay to have those materials moved up the hill to their building sites. \u201cNow,\u201d he says, only half-jokingly, \u201cI know everything about construction, by talking with people.\u201d Just through conversations, through living, \u201cyou end up becoming an expert.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ermiro sees his work with Museu Sankofa and Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica as inherently political. By making Rocinha\u2019s social history available\u2014by \u201ccapturing and distributing these memories\u201d across various media\u2014he can work to legitimize Rocinha\u2019s past, present, and future. In Ermiro\u2019s words, \u201cRocinha has been huge, and very influential, for a long time. It\u2019s just that without knowledge of our own story, we end up not seeing the value of our own strength.\u201d He believes that a reclamation of history is a way for Rocinha\u2019s residents to recognize that they are \u201con the top of a diamond in the South Zone.\u201d And, he says, \u201cIf you know your story, you are going to recognize your value. If you recognize your value, you are going to want to stay<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

See a slideshow of photos by Antoine Horenbeek from a Rocinha Hist\u00f3rica tour on May 17, 2018 [also on Flickr<\/a>]:<\/h4>\n

\"Rocinha<\/a>