Thesis supervisor(s)
: Sylvy Jaglin, Claude Cohen
The hosting of several international events that brought security issues back to the forefront at the end of 2008 prompted the Rio de Janeiro state government to implement a new public security policy aimed at regaining territorial control of a large number of favelas
with the help of Police Pacification Units (UPPs). In this context, the public authorities have partially redesigned their plan for integrating the favelas
. Since the 1990s, this plan had mainly focused on development, through improvements to infrastructure and access routes and, to a lesser extent, land and urban regularization. The authorities now plan to promote "integration through regularization" of commercial and administrative relations, bringing together the various actors in the public and private spheres. This thesis raises the question of the integration of favelas from a little-explored perspective: that of regularization through the electricity network, the aim of which is to turn "illegal users" into new "subscribers," linked to the distribution company by a meter. In particular, we will focus on highlighting the articulation between public and private logics at work in electricity service regularization projects in two favelas
, Santa Marta and Cantagalo. To this end, our analysis will examine the regularization of electricity service through its tools—socio-technical (installation of meters and network repairs), commercial (bill collection methods), and electricity consumption control—and how subscribers have appropriated them. The research shows that the regularization of electricity service reconfigures the relationship between favelados and the state and the market, which faces certain limitations: the contractual commercial relationship struggles to establish itself in a relationship of trust; actions to control consumption promote a "standardization" of behavior rather than support for usage; the regularization of the service reproduces rather than overcomes socio-economic inequalities, which are gradually losing their political character. This thesis thus aims to contribute to a better understanding of the modalities of integration of favelas in the context of increased neoliberalization of urban policies.
Keywords
: regularization, electricity service, favelas, Rio de Janeiro
Thesis defense on Friday, February 6, 2015 Doctorate: Spatial Planning, Urban Planning
Year of thesis registration:
2009
Doctoral school:
VTT – City, Transportation, and Territories