Processos de remoção e seus desdobramentos: tramas e percursos em busca de uma casa

Abstract

In 2012 it was effected the removal of the tenants of the Mandacaru Slum and the streets close to São Sebastião Market in the northern part of Rio de Janeiro city. The area is known for its importance in the regional and national economy for hosting the Bolsa de Gêneros Alimentícios (Foodstuff Stock Market), where is set the price of most part of food consumed in the city. To the public power and to businessmen associated with the BGA this is one of the measures of a bigger project of “gentrification” of the area. The former tenants were “relocated” to apartment buildings of the Federal Government program called Minha casa, Minha vida (My house, my life) in the neighbours of Campo Grande and Santa Cruz, in the west part of the city. If for some (the businessmen) the relocating process makes the area again available to business, to the relocated ones there is no consensus, although all are aware of the inequality of power relations involved. From reports of the tenants that describe the expectations and the changes that happened in their life conditions, this dissertation aims to think the changing of address and its impact on the quotidian experience of the people in Rio de Janeiro, as well as the production of their subjectivities in which the “house” is the desired future that not always come through.