FAVELAS E REFAVELAS: O IMAGINÁRIO ESPACIAL-RACIAL DA FAVELA EM LIMA BARRETO E CONCEIÇÃO EVARISTO

Abstract

This study addresses the space-race conjuncture, focusing on its configuration as an imaginary through literature, taking as case studies the short stories “O moleque” (Lima Barreto, 1920) and “Ana Davenga” (Conceição Evaristo, 1995). In both narratives, the favela assumes a central role; although they depict very different moments in Brazilian urban peripherization, there is a persistent
repetition of marginalization. This discussion reveals that the history of urban processes in Brazil is marked by a continuous ‘pushing out’ of the most oppressed subjects, thus creating and recreating spaces associated with Blackness and poverty. In response to these processes, people reclaim their ancestral practices and reconfigure difference from a difference imposed upon them. Through their ‘writing from the favela’, these stories stand as strong and forceful interventions, introducing heterogeneity to a space that lives in both national and international imaginaries as a homogeneous association with violence, itself tied to race.
Keywords: Lima Barreto; Conceição Evaristo; favela; race; urbanization; Rio de Janeiro.