In their research, Anjuli Fahlberg, Cristiane Martins, Joiceane Lopes, Ana Cláudia Araújo, Lidiane Santos, Sophia Costa, and Guilherme Baratho examine how democracy is being recreated in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, particularly Cidade de Deus, where Covid-19 was first recorded. Drawing on their research on the pandemic’s impact on local residents vis-à-vis emergent forms of autonomous governance and how these are shaped by gender and racial dynamics, they argue that civic associations’ mobilization tactics in Cidade de Deus can help us understand how democracy is being reinvented in these spaces under conditions of extreme governmental neglect.
Guilherme Baratho
Guilherme Baratho is a doctoral student at Northeastern University and a volunteer member of the Research Collective Building Together. During the past 12 months, he has virtually participated in discussions with the Research Collective regarding the aid-mobilization project during the Covid-19 pandemic. During the summer, he traveled to Cidade de Deus to help create a dossier, which would act as an official document that NGOs can send to funders and policymakers to receive recognition for the assistance they provided. Baratho uses qualitative methods to study the role of religion in relation to politics and urban structure in Brazil. Prior to Northeastern, he completed his master's in sociology at the University of Chicago and a BA in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles.