Ties that Strengthen, Ties that Bind

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 5 examines how favela activists establish ties to urban and transnational actors, including private non-profit and for-profit organizations, the social service branch of the state, and urban social movements in order to bring resources and rights into the favela and insert the favela into urban politics. It shows that through partnerships with state and private actors, favela activists strengthen local forms of participatory democracy, even while struggling with little access to formal democratic rights. Activists are also embedded in social movements across and beyond the city, including throughout Brazil and the world. However, these relationships also reproduce inequities between favela activists and their allies in external movements. By exploring the power imbalances between local and transnational organizations, the chapter documents some of the costs that favela activists incur when forming alliances beyond their neighborhood.