ABSTRACT
This chapter presents lessons from an emerging participatory methodology that was used to define and use citizenship indicators to document and address human rights conditions in a number of favelas in the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro. This methodology starts with local leaders developing indicators with community members and then collecting data (from official sources and community surveys) to assess the state of human rights on all aspects of daily life in the favelas. Community members then discuss the results and use them to formulate or strengthen existing human rights claims. In addition, the research team worked with leaders and activists from local civil society organizations to increase their knowledge about mechanisms to access justice and pursue strategies for collective action to defend community members' rights — over and above their existing public advocacy work and political protests. The experiences in this chapter capture a politically challenging period in Rio, stretching through the COVID-19 pandemic and the last years of the Bolsonaro government. While this period was marked by a troubling decline in human rights in the favelas — especially for historically marginalized groups — it also featured a rise in collective mobilization by human rights groups.
