Reinventing Rio de Janeiro’s old port: territorial stigmatization, symbolic re-signification, and planned repopulation in Porto Maravilha | A reinvenção da zona portuária do Rio de Janeiro: estigmatização territorial, ressignificação simbólica e repovoamento planejado no projeto Porto Maravilha

Abstract

A b s t r a c t : Rio de Janeiro's former port has undergone an intense process of transformation driven by investor expectations and real estate profitability objectives. However, in this depressed area, long marked by various territorial stigmas, the rise in land value largely depends upon symbolic revaluation. One of the main objectives of the large-scale urban redevelopment project known as Porto Maravilha is to reverse existing perceptions of the port area, moving away from representations as an abandoned, decadent, dangerous space, towards a more positive image as a showcase for Rio de Janeiro and a new gateway to the city. This article describes the triple process through which this reversal is achieved: territorial stigmatization, symbolic re-signification and planned repopulation. It documents various strategies used by project proponents to radically transform the symbolic, material and social make-up of the area in order to promote its revaluation. It also aims to document diverse modes of resistance developed by local population groups to denounce the invisibility, silencing and symbolic erasure they have suffered, showing, in the process, that in Porto Maravilha, culture serves both as an instrument of gentrification and as a tool of resistance.K e y w o r d s : Porto Maravilha; Rio de Janeiro; territorial stigmatization; symbolic re-signification; planned repopulation. r e s u m o : A antiga zona portuária do Rio de Janeiro vem passando por transformações que atendem às expectativas de lucratividade de investidores do setor imobiliário. No entanto, a efetivação dessa revalorização fundiária passa por uma revalorização simbólica da área. Um dos objetivos do projeto Porto Maravilha é inverter as percepções existentes sobre a zona portuária, afastando as representações existentes -um espaço abandonado, decadente, perigoso -para transformá-la em uma vitrine e porta de entrada da cidade. A partir da mobilização de três

Memorial agency, heritage dissonance, and the politics of memory in the preservation of Rio de Janeiro’s Valongo slave wharf

“…A massive project labelled Porto Maravilha, (The Wonderful Port) was soon launched, becoming the largest public-private partnership in Brazilian history. With their sense of urgency and important symbolic weight, mega-events would provide the impetus, public and private investment, and planning instruments that would allow the realisation of this controversial urban project (Sánchez and Broudehoux 2013;Broudehoux and Monteiro 2017).…”

“…Porto Maravilha became a textbook example of culture-led redevelopment. Using both the rhetoric and instruments of neoliberal urban planning, Porto Maravilha sought to capitalise upon the creative economy and various cultural manifestations to transform the image of the sector, from a workingclass, Afro-Brazilian neighborhood into a festive art and entertainment destination meant to attract international tourists and local members the creative class (Sánchez and Broudehoux 2013;Broudehoux and Monteiro 2017).…”

“…As the Museum of Tomorrow suggests, the revitalisation project was turned more towards the future than towards the past. Overall, Porto Maravilha rested upon an instrumentalisation of the port's industrial heritage, used as a mere backdrop and industrial-chic stage-set in the creation of a commodified, upscale playground for international tourists and local elites (Broudehoux and Monteiro 2017).…”

“…Like other slavery-related sites, it was given a new name and fell into oblivion (Lima 2020). Over time, historical amnesia, and a conscious avoidance of racial issues in official discourse effectively managed to expunge most remnants of the slave industry from collective memory (Souty 2018;Broudehoux and Monteiro 2017).…”

A wonderful global city? Resisting urban regeneration in Olympic Rio

“…Amid intense mobilization for the preservation of those ruins by Afro-Brazilian movements, the authorities in charge of Porto Maravilha agreed to incorporate the site as a feature of the regeneration project, in line with its multicultural approach. However, this attempt at a consensual representation of the past emerging (Broudehoux & Monteiro, 2017), the regeneration project unearthed historical sites of Afro-Brazilian memory that escaped their codification by the imaginaries of the integrated city which aimed at reconciling its past as the largest slave market of the Americas by projecting a multicultural and multiracial future encompassed by a sustainable planet. The various 'collectives' that emerged around those sites -'Quilombo Pedra do Sal'; 'Samba de Lei'; 'Bloco Escravos da Mauá'; 'Rolé dos Favelados' , among othersengaged in differential spatial practices that proposed other cities that diverged from the dominant representation imposed by the developmentalist/neoliberal project.…”