“…In this paper, we analyse such themes in relation to the discursive practices of risk assessment applied in Rio de Janeiro to justify the clearance of favelas in the post-2010 period. Favela clearance has a long and deeply controversial history in Rio, extending back to the first half of the twentieth century, with repeated attempts to cast favela dwellers as an illegal, dangerous and unsanitary threat to the urban order and to the modernisation of the city (Perlman, 2006;Soares Gonçalves, 2013;Valladares, 2005). After many contested attempts at favela clearance, in 1988 a major shift in urban policy sought to establish favelas as an integral rather than illegal part of the urban landscape (Soares Gonçalves, L. Mendes Barbosa and G. Walker: Epistemic injustice, risk mapping and climatic events 2006), giving "titling" rights and guarantees to favela residents (Magalhães, 2016).…”