Minha laje, minha vida: reflexões sobre o habitar favelado na busca por maior qualidade de vida na favela da Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

With around 1.4 million people living in subnormal agglomerates, the city of Rio de Janeiro harbours the largest number of favela inhabitants in Brazil. In the 2010 census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, this number accounted for 23% of Rio’s population. Of this amount, the Rocinha favela stands for 69.356 inhabitants, which makes it the largest favela in the country. This work attempts to reflect on the favelado (inhabitant of a favela) experience taking this favela - in which the laje (favela rooftop) is the central object - as empirical example. We make initial inquiries on how this constructive element, by acquiring particularities in the context of big favelas, potentially facilitates a number of lifestyles and improves quality of life for the inhabitants. Thus, if there are lajes in many constructions, the laje is used in various ways, capable of articulating mobility, landscape and place. The objective of this work is to comprehend what the laje represents in material and affective terms to a favelado, especially in Rocinha, addressing the history of its construction. In search of this understanding, we applied interviews with four families that have a significant part of their life stories represented in their lajes, collecting accounts that transpired the importance a laje can have, not only to their owners, but to all involved with its realization. Throughout the work we noted the diverse uses and function of lajes, the strategies employed for their construction and the difficulties faced in the process, which point towards future challenges that indicate a necessity of conceiving favelas as spaces with very particular dynamics, that are lacking in habitation policies regarding the specificities of these areas.