ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the transformation of Rio de Janeiro in the years leading to the hosting of the mega-events, with a special focus on its socio-spatial implications. It explores the dark underside of event-led urban redevelopment and its lasting consequences upon vulnerable members of society. The chapter describes various means of resistance to exclusion, invisibilisation and silencing, as they were deployed in the months leading to the city’s mega-events, and discusses the mitigated impacts of these various strategies. Mega-events represent great image-construction endeavours for athletes, corporations, politicians, cities and nations alike, and their organisation is dominated by image management and planning. Rio de Janeiro’s incursion into the realm of mega-events dates back to 1992, with the United Nation’s Conference on Environment and Development. Rio de Janeiro’s mega-events thus exacerbated the differential treatment given to favelas, worsened the state’s lack of responsibility towards their residents and consolidated their status as territories of exception.
