Between Law and Legitimacy, between Local and Global: A New Case of Urban Collective Identity

Morro Azul is a poor community placed in a very rich area of Rio de Janeiro. Since 1950, when this community started to grow, it fights against the government and the real Market. While part of the State and Market try to remove or reduce the physic area of the community, it fights in a very independent way to stay, to grow and to legitimate itself as a local social and economic actor. From 90ths Morro Azul has improved its independency and legitimacy strategies. In parallel to the local government’s aim to transform Rio de Janeiro in a global city, Morro Azul started to look for international recognition and investments, exploring its privileged physic location in a touristic area of Rio de Janeiro. Between (il)legality and (il)legitimacy, Morro Azul, government and formal Market fight for international investments. To reach this status, Morro Azul created international sports arenas, touristic services, cultural events and what they call “popular economy” or “solidarity economy”. The singularity of this community gets deeper because of its peculiar collective identity. At a first look, it has no ethnical identity characteristics, neither a strong criminal remark. This work intends to describe this new collective identity as a foundation to keep the land. In addition to this, this work intends to identify how international investments shaped its identity and the fight for the territory in a city intending to be global.