brazil4tour.com - tourism in Brazil

Start the interview by making a deliberately broad and general question, almost one of those questions with the other candidates battle it out in the electoral debates: It is possible to slum tours? Bianca Freire-Medeiros, the interviewee, I will only answer that question fully in the final minutes of our conversation. Not because she has shied away at the time to answer me, or because the question has sounded mechanical beast to start a newspaper interview. It was only answered in the order because the issue is too complex to be worked suddenly. And that’s what our conversation showed.

I say conversation because that’s how I referred to when caught the initial contact. And I mean first contact the second contact I had with Bianca, perhaps most personified the first, since the other was in the classroom, a lecture given by her in an elective offered by Professor Rosane Prado of the Post - Graduation in Social Sciences (PPCIS) of uerj. Our conversation was not limited to research that develops Bianca moment on the possibilities of implementing the slum tours, we also talk about changing the institution (she is a researcher at CPDOC Getúlio Vargas Foundation for about six months), the Overmundo, about the new film by Lucia Murat (the Ph.D. thesis of Bianca, in Binghantom University of New York, also speaks of the representation of Rio de Janeiro in Hollywood cinema), and the next miniseries Globe - Amazon, Galvez a Chico Mendes - whose production works as a researcher with the Giovana Manfredi, Sandra Regina and the author Gloria Perez.

Just before I opened the interview with the fateful question, Bianca tells me that in other work for TV Globo, might experience the drama of the search for television. Throughout the whole production process realistic novel of America and providing material on the situation of immigrants in Miami, she was surprised when one scene distanced himself from the likelihood prized in other cases. He tried to argue, but received a response to Perez Hilton, but that’s novel …. And unquote.

That’s how we started the interview, or better, so we continued the conversation. Separating fiction from reality. We went to head the research that Bianca coordinates, with eight assistants, on tourism in the favela.

With the speech marked by anacoluthon, something which is the head swarming with ideas, the interviewee responds without hesitation all my speeches. I leave the recorder turned on, because I know I will not keep up with all of my poor writing infinitely slow and my memory phase shift error. At the end of the chat with the film already exhausted, I remember Bianca mentioned that tourism experiences such as these probably started in South Africa, in the case of pilgrimages to Mandela’s cell. In Brazil, the record closer to a case such as the Rio is a tour conducted in Bahia, where one of his assistants is addressed to better understand the project.

Bianca’s research takes place in three fronts - interviews with staff developers, interviews with tourists and interviews with community residents (the latter two are the next steps) - and covers four broad areas - the Rocinha, the Hill of Babylon the Morro dos Prazeres and the Morro da Providencia, each with a characteristic that is peculiar.

It may seem that was the beginning of our conversation (and, therefore, that interview is full of venhevais and sobidesces), but the insight and why all this sociological research she just told me the socks chat: because when I began my research, was mobilized to the very idea that it was a zoo of poor, that idea of the jeep, you know? I did not know there were other types of tours, which were not made by Jeep, which is walking distance, you must van, a motorcycle has finally … I thought that was the end of the world, it is absurd. Bianca says, the Gavia, and half way back up one, two, six, ten jeeps, one after another, with the body open and tourists photographing everything. In the week preceding the interview, I even saw one of these jeeps.Something that draws attention. I have heard many people about it condemning the format of the tour, just remember the picture of the Bianca proposed zoo poor. She, however, relativized exposure. What I think is cool in this research is that it deconstructs several initial impressions.Not every tourist goes there with the spirit of humble or be invasive. Not all residents feel invaded or infringed. It may be that some people are deeply offended, but this is not the climate. You are very welcome. The residents are not passive in relation to that look. Sure, it’s an unequal relationship of power, tourists go there, they have cameras, they photograph and choose what to photograph, but it’s very interesting how the residents also take advantage of this situation to launch its look, in order to be the look . It was the time when I was thinking about the jeep again and asked if the metaphor is not zoo also served to the resident, who sees him coming, a jaulazinha, his circus. And she said the residents are very funny. E. .. there … to her clothes!They talk a lot. Anyway. In times when we could follow, people were super-I-love-you, no bad weather. But I’m also sure that when we start to interview people, they will say something …The idea is to ask What if you had to choose? If you could show the pro Rocinha tourist places that you show? When you travel, the places you visit? - Because the resident of Rocinha also travels, if only to Paqueta. I mean, he also puts in place a tourist, even though this is a thing off.It may be very hard for us to accept that maybe people want to even show their their shacks and slums. In Providence, when we started talking, people said it has to come. Have to show that the city does not even care, you know? While the city is thinking they will capitalize on a bitch-Favela-Bairro cool, the guy thinks he has to show that continues to uncollected rubbish … It is very naive or very claim - something in between - the social scientist, intellectuals in general, think smart we are, no one has the critical capacity unless that guy who studied, coming from academia. The guy who has studied and what comes from the academy I carried from my meager memory, since it was precisely here that the tape stopped. Before that, Bianca had explained to me each of the four cases.

In Rocinha, where, she said, paradigmatic tours are held since 1992. The last census published by the newspaper O Globo, estimated an average of four thousand tourists per month in the locality. But I think it’s very, you know? The agencies I spoke - and I felt amazing - it was somewhere around two thousand, two hundred. If you count each paid between 35 and 40 dollars, you see there a significant flow of money. And, in Rocinha, seven agencies are working regularly. And they also make other types of riding - only one of them, Favela Tour, takes place only ride in Rocinha but the others do Corcovado, ecotourism and such. It is an extreme case of external agents promoting tourism, and this ends up generating a market for domestic production - including, for example, of souvenirs. In the article we present the ANPOCS Bianca this week, she cites some products by Rocinha: t-shirts, paintings, embroidery, sculpture, CDs and a great line of recycled. One product in particular caught my attention: a plaque with the words ‘ROCINHA: A PEACEFUL AND BEAUTIFUL PLACE - COPACABANA - RIO DE JANEIRO’. It is, according to Bianca, the incorporation of the scenario Rocinha broader tourist town. (Anyone out there need a map to find the favela?)

In the experience of Rocinha, Bianca quotes at the other end of the study, the case of the Mount of Babylon, whose attempt to promote tourism is based on inicitava and mobilize local residents themselves. In Babylon, tours are held about twice a year, with almost one hundred people led by young people in the community. Tours are free, with the support of the city and shopping Rio Sul, published mostly by a mailing list. The difference, in addition to internal agents exploiting tourism, is that the search for the script of Babylon is essentially Rio, some former residents, people interested in ecotourism. The tragedy here is that they have no structure. Do not have a car to go get the tourists in the hotel, the guides - who are young of Babylon, the Hat-hose etc.. not speak English, do not speak other languages. And that is a deterrent.

The restriction may not be so great if internal and external actors unite strength, is what you should be thinking. This is where experience comes in third, the Morro dos Prazeres in Santa Teresa, where an NGO offering vocational courses for young people. But unfortunately, there, a middle-agent-external-internal means not left it to the satisfaction of revenge - the traffic. Bianca points out that conflicts exist, but not the tone of the projects. She says she relies on agencies when they explain that there is no relation to trafficking, and also says that the situation has had tourists have to give the camera because the picture hit man army. Some agencies avoid going where their mouths are. But in others it is used as a factor of excitement. Speak Look, will have an armed man, but you do not shoot. It is a wholly adventure tour. And evidence that in the same place you have different possibilities for walks. But in all situations in which the slum is involved, you have this level of risk as a factor. A tension between risk and safety. Now, what I think is incredible that in all these years nothing has happened. If you think about it, nothing ever happens! How many bad things we have not heard of tourists in Copacabana?

Another case in rich discussion, the last of the four studies that Bianca is the Morro da Providencia. And then the most curious is that the government is promoting tourism. The government as an agent, which is quite interesting because for a long time you have the speech the removal of slums, which attempted to carry out the construction of a wall, those crazy things do Conde, and runs in parallel a speech like this , that not only the slum is part of the city, as it is worth and must be reckoned as such. Bianca is about nine hours of interviews with Lu Petersen, one of the architects of the Favela-Bairro Project, and who founded the Open Museum of Providence, which is competing with the Museum of the Tide the title of the first museum in slums. All this discussion was already legal. I even wrote an article comparing these two experiences. It turns out that soon after, not so long that the Museum of Providence had been opened, had that conflict of the Army in search of lost weapons, and many of the things that were recovered as cultural assets of the favela, as the Chapel, the Museum of Samba Dodo were stuck bullet. It is an absurd irony.

Irony, which is evident when you stop to think about the phenomenon of reality tours, a worldwide phenomenon, a tourist with the character of social involvement, a dark ride, violent, tragic. Bianca has plans to conduct a joint study with a friend sociologist at New York, comparing the experiences of slum tourism, at Ground Zero, and New Orleans - the most recent of these reality tours, which goes by the slogan On the eye of the Katrina is the storm Tours, understand? Just missing a breeze … The question for the researcher, is essentially moral. It is Money and Morality. When there is money and morals involved, how these things work together? What you are selling, which is being marketed in tourism is the economy of feeling, are not exactly tangible things, but experiences. It’s the human misery, not only in the sense of poverty, but the condition. And how do you turn it into a commodity? She says that when he began the interviews with the players with, ask what you need to sell the slum as an attraction?What you need to do to convince the tourist?, And they said: No, you do not have to convince anyone. Every day there are people willing to go to the favela.

The motivation that drives the huge number of tourists to the slum is the next step to be investigated in the research. And to explain it as reminiscent Bianca, one must take into account the process and the media products. Knowing that the tour is not so complicated. In the hotels there are flyers and marketing materials of different agencies. Some tourists have come from abroad, or because they have seen on websites, or because someone said, or because they indicate a number of guides, such as the Planet in London, and recently, the very guide of Riotur. People know, but knowing he would be obliged to do. What is an inversion of logic. It is almost a suggestion that to understand and really know what is the river - and not just Rio de Janeiro but Brazil - you must visit the slum. Not understanding the Brazil that you understand the favela, is the opposite. Tourism in the favela is an experience that guarantees you an understanding of what the Brazilian culture, because it’s all there, says Bianca. Sold as an experience microsociological scripts also give tourists the feeling of holding a social work, a kind of altruistic action. Most foreigners who come and go in jeeps, on bikes, in vans are people who have made Calcutta, have made Indonesia, China, and compare these experiences. But the Rio slum, says Bianca, offers something unique. No wonder it has to be in the South, or at least in places that are not plans. People are motivated by City of God, all the agencies said this about the phenomenon of-Town-God gave a violent heating market. But if people are interested by what they saw in the movie, why not after all make the tour in City of God? And the obvious answer was that it is far from the South Zone and has a good view. It corresponds to this idea, already fully internalized the international audience, that is synonymous with slum hill overlooking the sea. City of God is not it. Another good case in point is the documentary Favela Rising, about the Afroreggae. Several scenes, which is supposed to pass in Vicar General, was shot in Vidigal. The person is speaking I was born and raised in the favela - and has a scene showing the Vidigal … It is very good that the case of Favela Rising, because it has nothing of foreign-mocking-the-poor-Brazilian, is a co-production with the Afroreggae, a construction bound and agreed between the parties.

At that time, the image appears translucent and shiny with a clone of ethereal Gloria Perez hovering over the interview, but that’s just a movie - she says. And Bianca imaginary answers the question with a smile that for half word wise is sufficient: But this is a documentary, right?Another irony? For Bianca, the example shows that other slums rarely have the opportunity to enter the market.

You have to have some aesthetic prerogatives that not all slums have. It is clear that what today is tourism around the world to create new predicates tour in unexpected places, but this tradition, which links poverty in Brazil to this aesthetic that is very particular that esthetics is the samba, color, aesthetics of City of God, has a long history. There is poverty covered with flies from Calcutta, poverty is not a toothless, is a pretty, happy, happy structurally. And that runs the world. Compare that to what Bianca said at the beginning of the interview - Rocinha is an experience of contact with poverty. There was a time I was walking with tourists and the guy said this: Ah, but I expected worse. Then you think, Rocinha is not poor enough - and you see that is really an inverted logic.

In fact, most of the scripts in their own Rocinha happens when people are working, then there is little contact with residents. Little contact with adults … Children are the greatest success, you know? And it is a very visual contact, mediated by the very experience of photography and visual impact that the favela offers. Is the language barrier. But the children interact. They are behind, want to be photographed, if you enter the sites of the agencies, has at least one picture of child looking at the camera. And you are a dynamic, agencies do not like that the children are asking, then they start to sell Pulseirinhas, crafts … And it becomes a really attractive.

One of the agencies that operate tourism in Rocinha - Favela Tour - maintains a social project in Vila Canoas. But Bianca says that this is an exception. Everyone thinks they are contributing to a better location as tourism deconstructs stereotypes and people feel … She hesitates, prestigious. Moreover, there is the issue of self-esteem of the residents, very marked. It is as if the mere presence of tourism was already enough social action.

But the impression is, Bianca’s own words, is that, in view of the residents, not the presence of the tourism problem. I mean, the problem is not the tourists, or the idea that people go there for the poor, the problem is: who benefits? - What the issue much more complex, because there is poverty turned into a commodity that is the drama, perhaps our drama, but not theirs. There is talk of one of the leaders in the interviews we did a good illustration. I ask, but you do not think that is a tricky thing people photographing the poorest huts, more precarious? And the guy says, No, that is there is meant to be seen the reality s there supposed to be seen. I want to know who the copyright. It’s kind of a reversal of what we think is copyright. It is as if he said, I wonder who gets the right to sell and poverty … But I think this is an issue for us too, because this is a discussion we - I say, intellectuals, academia, even the middle class.

And then, only then, Bianca answered my first question: I think the slum has every reason to work as an attraction. Already provides, and will keep giving. Now, you have an experience of tourism where the residents are the biggest beneficiaries, there is another story. It is these difficulties that the experiments have shown. Answered?

Text translated into English without change.

Author: Viktor Chagas. Source: http://www.overmundo.com.br/overblog/o-venhevai-do-turismo-eo-sobidesce-da-favela