 |
   |
  World Views: Cabinet Choices, Prostitution and Poverty in Brazil (Jan 11, 2013)This week President Obama finalized more Cabinet choices for his second term. If former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) is confirmed as Secretary of Defense, and current U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is confirmed as Secretary of State, there will be a noticeable lack of women in key national security and international relations positions. International security and comparative politics expert Rebecca Cruise said that sends a message. “We are a country that has spent significant amounts of money trying to promote women around the world,†Cruise said. “Female education. Women’s rights. And yet, we’re not having women that are leading these diplomatic missions.†Prostitutes in one of Brazil's biggest cities are beginning to sign up for free English classes ahead of this year's Confederations Cup and the 2014 World Cup. University of Oklahoma College of International Studies Dean Suzette Grillot said even though prostitution is legal and regulated in Brazil, the concern is about sex trafficking. “We often hear about these high level events, and how this encourages sex trafficking,†Grillot said. “Women are [illegally] trafficked in for the purpose of prostitution.†Loyola University Chicago cultural anthropologist Ben Penglase joins Grillot for a broader conversation about violence and poverty in Brazil’s largest cities. In 2008, police in Rio started trying to pacify the city’s favelas, which Penglase said is akin to counterinsurgency tactics. “These neighborhoods had to be occupied,†Penglase said. “They had to be cleared, at least of the visible elements of drug trafficking, and the state then needed to present a permanent presence in these neighborhoods.†Brazilian census data released in December 2011 indicate that 6 percent of the population lives in these urban slums. INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS: On the complicated definition of “favela†When people first moved into these neighborhoods, they didn't own the land that they lived on. They simply went about building homes, and often in many cases, actually subdividing plots and buying and selling them, even if they didn't have official title. They're part of the urban fabric of the city of Rio, in that they house 1/5th or maybe 1/3rd of the population of the city of Rio. Yet, for a long time, they haven't been integrated into regular city services. So by-and-large, they haven't gotten regular sewage, regular electricity. That's changed pretty dramatically in the past 10 years, but originally they didn't. So they occupied this "brown zone" between legality and illegality. On how drug traffickers capitalized on favela residents’ relationship with police In the 1970's you have a region-wide boom in cocaine production and cocaine trafficking, and…[there was] also a big internal market for cocaine. And drug traffickers territorialize themselves in favela neighborhoods. Favelas are often located near wealthier neighborhoods, or near transportation routes. The other issue had to do exactly with the lack of regular provision of government services, so drug traffickers could try to legitimate (sic) themselves by claiming to provide safety in a context where the state was not doing that. On the “mixed record†of the Pacifying Police Units [In the] beginning of the 2000's homicide rates in Rio were equivalent of homicide rates in the Occupied Territories, for instance, have come down pretty dramatically. And yet, it's pretty clear that until you do something much more structural, the drug trade is going to continue to be an issue. There's a continuing pattern of distrust of the police, not just among poor people, I would say among most Brazilians. There's also a lot of concern that the neighborhoods that have been occupied by the police, that one of the effects that it's had is that it's displaced drug trafficking into other neighborhoods. FULL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: SUZETTE GRILLOT, HOST: Dr. Ben Penglase, welcome to World Views. BEN PENGLASE: Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. GRILLOT: You've been working in Brazil for many years, particularly in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Brazil, in the favelas. Tell us what drew you to this country. This country's capturing our attention these days. We're hearing a lot about the World Cup in a couple of years, the Summer Olympics a few years after that. What is it that's really capturing your attention about Brazil, and what drew you to do work in the country? PENGLASE: Well, my engagement with Brazil actually goes quite a ways back. I lived in Rio in Brazil as a kid with my parents, right next to one of the largest favelas, slum neighborhoods, in the world - right next to Rocinha - and we would drive through it every now and then when I was on my way to school. So I always had this curiosity about Brazil and Brazilian culture. I would go back to the United States for a summer vacation, and always felt very American in Brazil, and somewhat Brazilian in the United States, and I was always trying to figure why that was so. Also, a real interest in people who lived in poor neighborhoods whose lives I saw. I sort-of interacted with them in a very superficial way, wondering what their worlds were like. After I graduated from college, I went to work for Human Rights Watch, initially just doing basic office work. But I ended up doing a couple of projects on police violence in Brazil. So that really took me back to Brazil, and made me very curious about the forces that were creating and sustaining violence, but also on everyday effects of poverty and urban violence on people that had to live with that on a daily basis. As much as I think the human rights advocacy approach is important and valuable, for me the question is really sort-of what is everyday life like in poor neighborhoods? So that took me to anthropology, and then I spent about a year and a half living in Rio. Almost a year of that living in a poor neighborhood, a favela, in Rio. I've been back and forth numerous times since then. GRILLOT: So, spending that kind of time living the life of a resident in these communities, what has your experience led you to learn about this, and what do we really need to know? PENGLASE: I think the most important thing to know has to do with really the diversity, both between different poor neighborhoods, and even within poor favela neighborhoods. These neighborhoods all get collapsed into this one term - "favela" - which means basically a squatter neighborhood, where people didn't originally own the land that they live on... GRILLOT: Yeah, tell us a little more about what that even means. That's something I think is perhaps puzzling to many, is what that really means. Because not all poor neighborhoods are favelas... PENGLASE: Right. GRILLOT: ...so, being a squatter neighborhood, meaning what exactly? PENGLASE: Well, this is a very complicated question, of course there's no easy question, because "favela" means... GRILLOT: We have like 10 minutes (laughs), so I think... PENGLASE: (Laughs) Sure, yeah, no, favela has a whole range of different connotations is maybe one way of putting it. One basic meaning of favela is that it's a squatter neighborhood. That when people first moved into these neighborhoods, they didn't own the land that they lived on. They simply went about building homes, and often in many cases, actually subdividing plots and buying and selling them, even if they didn't have official title. Over the years, a lot of these neighborhoods have gotten official title. So that distinction has gotten pretty fuzzy. And the question of title-to-land in Rio is complicated, period. Not just in poor neighborhoods. So one basic understanding is that they're squatter neighborhoods. Another one is that they are "unofficial neighborhoods." They're part of the urban fabric of the city of Rio, in that they house 1/5th or maybe 1/3rd of the population of the city of Rio. Yet, for a long time, they haven't been integrated into regular city services. So by-and-large, they haven't gotten regular sewage, regular electricity. That's changed pretty dramatically in the past 10 years, but originally they didn't. So they occupied this "brown zone" between legality and illegality. GRILLOT: So this existence that they live then, in these unofficial neighborhoods, and in these conditions, is this why we see such violence? And related to that, how has the government of Brazil, how has the city of Rio been able to react to such violence, particularly recently. PENGLASE: Sure, well, the history of violence - since they're often neighborhoods where poor and non-white people lived, they were often subject to particularly abusive forms of policing, and weren't patrolled on a regular basis. Public security was not provided. So when the police would enter favela neighborhoods - and this goes way back - they often went in in a repressive role. So rather than resolving conflicts, rather than providing public security, it was often very much about repressing crimes, and often about treating favela residents as criminal subjects. So for instance, in the 40's and 50's there were vagrancy laws, that if people didn't have a signed work permit, they could be arrested for the crime of vagrancy. Now what happened is that in the late 70's and early 80's, this was a very fertile ground for the expansion of drug trafficking. In the 1970's you have a region-wide boom in cocaine production and cocaine trafficking, and Brazil becomes important in the global drug trade, both as a route for drugs going largely from the production areas in Colombia and Peru and Bolivia, out of the big Brazilian ports in Santos and Rio to markets in the U.S. and Europe. But [there was] also a big internal market for cocaine. And drug traffickers territorialize themselves in favela neighborhoods. Favelas are often located near wealthier neighborhoods, or near transportation routes. The other issue had to do exactly with the lack of regular provision of government services, so drug traffickers could try to legitimate (sic) themselves by claiming to provide safety in a context where the state was not doing that. Obviously, they could take advantage of the animosity that already existed between favela residents and the police. GRILLOT: So there was a recent, well, for lack of a better term I guess, invasion of the police. The police invaded some favela neighborhoods in Rio just a few months ago. More or less took over the territory. What has been the reaction to that? Is the community welcoming this? Is there more of a sense of community policing now, in the sense that the police are there to help protect the residents of this region, and clean up the criminal activity, or no? PENGLASE: Well, I think it's important to step back first and understand a little bit about why this policy called the "pacification policy" - why and how it came into effect. It's been clear for a number of years now that the security situation in Rio was not sustainable the way that it was. There were a couple of very high-profile incidents where drug traffickers from within the prison system staged mass panics in the city of Rio. There was a lot of concern that the security situation was untenable, that it was negatively impacting tourism. But much more broadly, negatively impacting investment in the city of Rio. At the same time, there had been projects on-and-off to create a different model of policing in the state of Rio. There had been these small projects on community-based policing under various different administrations in the state of Rio - some going back to the Garotinho administration in the 90's. And then I think what happened is that recently, with the concern about the Olympics and the World Cup, but I think more broadly with the economic growth in the city of Rio, there was a sense that having these large neighborhoods - that were not outside the provision of public safety, but were also outside of the legal economy - was not very sustainable. And I think there was a sense that people who lived in favelas had to be brought into the formal economy. It's a big consumer base. Lots of potential for expansion of businesses in Brazil that are looking for new customers. And also a sense that the security situation was a drawback, not just for the Olympics, but more broadly. So the Rio government expanded on the community policing program, but also I think started to think of policing in favelas, really akin to notions of counterinsurgency. That these neighborhoods had to be occupied. That they had to be cleared, at least of the visible elements of drug trafficking, and that the state then needed to present a permanent presence in these neighborhoods. GRILLOT: And are we seeing a positive outcome here? PENGLASE: Boy, it's so hard to tell... GRILLOT: Is it perhaps too early to tell? PENGLASE: Without a doubt. A positive outcome in the sense that the high-profile incidents of drug-related crime are not happening. A positive outcome in the sense that homicide rates that hit astonishing levels in the 90's and beginning of the 2000's homicide rates in Rio were equivalent of homicide rates in the Occupied Territories, for instance, have come down pretty dramatically. And yet, it's pretty clear that until you do something much more structural, the drug trade is going to continue to be an issue. There's a continuing pattern of distrust of the police, not just among poor people, I would say among most Brazilians. There's also a lot of concern that the neighborhoods that have been occupied by the police, that one of the effects that it's had is that it's displaced drug trafficking into other neighborhoods. So it's very much a mixed record, and a lot of questions about how sustainable this project is in the long run. GRILLOT: Clearly a very complicated issue. I have to ask though, you have a new project, very quickly, on jujitsu in Brazil. PENGLASE: Right. GRILLOT: What's going on with this, and how does that relate to perhaps some of this other work you've been doing? PENGLASE: Well, Brazilian jujitsu is a martial art that was brought from Japan to Brazil at the beginning of the 20th Century. It's had this global boom in popularity in the past 10 years, with the expansion of the popularity of mixed martial arts, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. And it has these Brazilian roots, and I've been very curious to understand why has it grown so much in popularity? But also, what is the experience of learning jujitsu like? What effects does that have? It was very visible in Brazil when I lived there in the late 90's and early 2000's, and I always sort-of had it in the back of my mind, the question of why are people so interested and excited about doing this? So I think that's really where that comes from. GRILLOT: So the impact that it has on daily life, in terms of the confidence that young people may have as they grow up...? PENGLASE: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. There was a famous Brazilian jujitsu teacher who I interviewed a while ago, and I asked him, "What does jujitsu do for someone?" And he said, "Jujitsu saves them." And I really got intrigued with what does that mean? How does that happen? Also, very clearly, there's sort-of a class difference here. Jujitsu was booming in popularity in Brazil in the 1990's when the security situation in Rio was pretty dramatically negative, and there was this expansion of interest in martial arts among largely middle class and upper-middle class young men. And I was interested in how was jujitsu used to manage safety and insecurity. GRILLOT: Very interesting. Well, I know this is a new project for you. We look forward to hearing more about it. Thank you so much for being with us on World Views. It's a very interesting topic. PENGLASE: Great, well thank you. Copyright © 2013 KGOU Radio. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to KGOU Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only. Any other use requires KGOU's prior permission. KGOU transcripts are created on a rush deadline by our staff, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of KGOU's programming is the audio.  Listen« back  |
