Slum The slum, the world and the neighborhood:

the displacements of a pub during the pacification policy in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This work analyzes the course of ‘pacification policy’ in a slum in Rio de Janeiro, from the perspective pub owner and his establishment’s trajectory. In 2009, a Pacifying Police Unit was installed at Chapéu Mangueira, a slum the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro. The subsequent increase in touristic flow and circulating money among small businesses transformed daily life in the favela. One of the main exponents of this process is Bar do David, a pub inaugurated in 2010 that since became a touristic attraction and was even elected ‘best pub in the country’ in 2016. After the de-characterization of the pacification policy, which accelerated in 2017, the slum once again started to experience police incursions and armed conflicts between rival criminal groups. Such changes meant a new reconfiguration of the local economy and emptied the pub of most of its clientele. Faced with this scenario, David opened another pub in the Copacabana neighborhood in 2019. In approximately ten years, political and economic transformations in the city boosted and later snubbed the operation of a pub inside a slum. Mediated by sociological concepts, these itineraries allow for reflection on the recent situation of the “favela problem” in Rio de Janeiro.