Women’s Territoriality: Resisting in the Favela of Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This essay analyzes the lives of women living in Favela da Rocinha, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, discussing the possibilities of action and resistance while facing everyday processes of oppression. The subject of the study is women’s territoriality, i.e., the influence of women who, despite violence and the planned absence of the State, are able to shape the stigmatized territory of the favela and to resist the oppression that the residents of the informal city face. This article analyzes women’s actions that reconfigure the territory of the favela, through sociopolitical practices of resistance and community participation at Favela da Rocinha. The adopted methodology brings a perspective against the patriarchal cultural hegemony, articulating concepts of the feminist theory with participant observation in meetings of local grassroot organizations and interviews with women that are protagonists in the political community life of Rocinha. As a result, this research offers contribution from a gender perspective to the elaboration of urbanism strategies in favelas, that consider the issues of women in these territories.