Fromthefavelastotheneighborhoods

In the 1940s and 1950s, vague references by the press or authorities to an undefined ‘little favela of Bonsucesso’ – which usually pointed to different favelas, even if close to one another – gave way to the mention of their own names and identities: Morro do Timbau, Parque Maré, Parque União, Baixa do Sapateiro, Nova Holanda, Rubem Vaz.

Image description: The image is a black-and-white photograph of a group of people gathered in front of a building. The spatial arrangement shows the individuals grouped in the center of the image, with some standing and others sitting. In the background, there is a structure that appears to be a building under construction or renovation. The text in the image mentions "The 'Favelinha de Bonsucesso' is being destroyed. Appeal from hundreds of families."

Gradually, the residents mobilized to build the identity of their places of residence: fetching water on the other side of Avenida Brasil; filling in the ground to build their houses; demanding schools and health clinics; fighting not to be evicted -- in short, creating an identity to be mobilized according to the struggles and interests of the residents' collective.

Helinho, a journalist for Maré de Notícias, talks about the transformations that occurred between the neighborhoods and favelas, based on the definition of the streets of Manguinhos and Bonsucesso:

Hoje as ruas da Maré têm CEP, mas na época não tinha CEP. Então a gente assinava como Manguinhos. E ali na Baixa do Sapateiro, Morro do Timbau, Nova Holanda... Tudo assinava como Bonsucesso, porque era a ‘favela de Bonsucesso’. (...) quando virou bairro, em 95, os comerciantes de Bonsucesso não queriam que Bonsucesso fosse assemelhado à favela. Era muito feio Bonsucesso ter uma favela, então o que acontece: eles pegaram o Complexo da Maré, virou um bairro. Virou ‘Bairro Maré’.

Anyway, the image and fame of the stilt houses of "Maré" – previously considered one of the favelas – ended up creating a collective identity for the whole area, and nowadays, all 16 favelas belong to Maré. Either parts of the Complexo da Maré, or, still, the Região Administrativa da Maré. They are no longer the favelas of the Bonsucesso, Manguinhos, Ramos neighborhoods… but Nova Holanda, Vila do João, Conjunto Esperança, Timbau.

All of this thanks to the people who once fought for the right to housing and to the city. And it was in the fight for these rights, including the right to territory, that they began to identify themselves as residents of a specific locality and part of something bigger: the favelas of Complexo da Maré, in the Maré neighborhood.

Image description: This is a black-and-white aerial photograph of an urban area. The image shows a dense cluster of residential buildings arranged in parallel rows, occupying most of the left side of the image. Moving to the right, we see a large body of water, possibly a river or canal, separating this part of the city from the other. In the background, there is an area with more spacing between the buildings and some green spaces. At the upper right edge of the image, there is a large, rectangular structure, which may be a public or institutional building.