Fine-Tuning the “Right to Rio de Janeiro” from Above and Below: The City Statute in Pre-Olympics Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

Brazil’s City Statute enshrines the “right to the city” and the “social function of property” in its constitution. Brazilian scholars, however, identify barriers to achieving the law’s agenda. Broader debates regarding the right to the city suggest the concept has been overextended beyond meaning, and that formalization of the right to the city betrays its radical Lefebvrian roots. This article is based on fieldwork conducted in Rio de Janeiro when widespread forced evictions were being carried out prior to the city’s hosting of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Based on observations within eleven housing occupations, and sixty interviews with participants, leaders of social movement organizations, and local politicians, the article argues that the “constitutionalization” of the right to the city and the social function of property formed the basis for the politicization of dispossessed urban residents. The social function of property was a particularly salient concept for capturing the injustice of the planned relocation of the displaced poor to the urban periphery, while countless buildings sat underutilized in the city center.