The paper aims at investigating the dilemmas involved in the recent turn of international humanitarian organizations to urban areas of the Global South. The incorporation of impoverished urban communities—such as Rio de Janeiro’s favelas—in the landscape of humanitarian action results from a particular reading that connects urbanization processes with a redefinition of the scope of humanitarian action. The paper argues that the transposition of humanitarian protection and assistance to other situations of violence, such as Rio’s favelas, is premised on the construction of slums as marginal sites of insecurity and as the epitome of all problems related to urban processes in developing and underdeveloped societies. Based on a review of Médecins sans frontières’ project in Complexo do Alemão - Rio de Janeiro, from 2007 to 2009, the paper concludes with a critical reading of the consequences of recognizing favelas (and the global slum) as a problem of security and protection, without acknowledging the complex democratic dimensions of local political struggles.
Topic:
Development, Humanitarian Aid, Urbanization, and Slums
René Depestre est né en 1926 en Haïti. Il a participé à la fondation du Parti Communiste haïtien et au renversement du dictateur Élie Lescot avant d'être condamné à l'exil en 1946. Il traversera alors différents pays (Tchécoslovaquie, France, Cuba, URSS, Brésil, Chili), au contact de divers gouvernements socialistes, avant de s'installer dans les Corbières, où il « met en ordre le chaos de sa vie » à travers l'écriture.