A small revolution: Young favela dwellers and audiovisual production

Intellectuals, policy makers and foreign visitants have historically stigmatized Rio de Janeiro's favelas as dangerous settlements but also celebrated them as exotic places with a rich and unique culture. While violence and exotics remain important representations of Brazilian favelas, new portrays but especially new actors have emerged in the last years, since residents of these territories have been able to present their cultural production in different spaces of consumption (television, music and movies industries). This article discusses how young slum dwellers, participants of "social projects" carried out by local non-governmental organizations, become producers of "alternative" images of favelas. The analysis reflects upon the production of images and representations by these young people about themselves and where they live, and how their production is linked to activities of nongovernmental organizations in those territories. I discuss how some of these initiatives are seeking public legitimacy as representatives of favelas dwellers, partly as a substitute for residents' associations that have been losing strength and recognition. The so-called "NGOs from within" bring the issue of self-representation into the "social projects market" by articulating two logics. On one hand, they represent favelas as a place of risk, which is part of what I will call "repertoires of social projects." On the other hand, they identify a "local culture", which must be valued as a way to ensure the residents' citizenship rights. In this paper, representations that reinforce stigmas and self-representations that counter-act them are the object of my analysis. By analyzing the case of the NGO TV Morrinho, located in a favela called Pereira da Silva, at Rio de Janeiro – Brazil, this paper explores how these two apparently conflicting logics are articulated in the discourses and actions of these young favela residents and their NGOs.