Exception and resistance in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro

The articulation between basic material restrictions, the implementation of special public policies, the criminalization of territories, the demonization of poverty, and violence exerted by armed forces contribute to the ‘apartheidisation’ of favelas and to their definition as “territories of exception”. The state of exception mediates the relationship between the favela and the “asphalt”, the inside and the outside, the center and the margins, between a sense of belonging and extraneousness. It is sustained by a peculiar iconism that ascribes the favelas the epicentrality of forms of criminality and social deviance that are sought to be contained and administered. By operating through policies of “inclusive exclusion” (Agamben, 1995: 26), the state of exception culturally shapes the favelas on the base of apologetic expressions that are functional to the exercise of power: it yields to the centralized control of the state the management of contradictions, thus reproducing the racist devices discussed by Michel Foucault.