Gendered urban violence among Brazilians : Painful truths from Rio de Janeiro and London

Abstract

This book aims to understand the ‘painful truths’ of gendered violence in the city and how women challenge it through resistance and creative practices. Drawing on an extensive body of collaborative research with women in the favelas of Maré in Rio de Janeiro and among Brazilian migrants in London, it conceives gendered urban violence as multidimensional, multiscalar and deeply embedded within structural and intersectional power relations. The book develops a ‘translocational gendered urban violence framework’ that foregrounds transnational connections across symbolic and literal borders. The framework emphasises the need to move beyond individual interpretations of gendered violence in cities towards one that acknowledges structural, symbolic and infrastructural violence. It also incorporates the need for an embodied approach that can be captured through engagement with the arts and arts-based methods as well as resistance practices. The book outlines a ‘translocational feminist tracing methodological framework’ that captures transnational dialogue and knowledge production, drawing on a feminist epistemological approach based on collaboration, co-design and engagement beyond the academy. In centring the painful truths of gendered urban violence as revealed by women, the book contributes to a range of debates that include acknowledging such violence as direct and indirect ranging from the body to the global, as well as the need to recognise urban violence as deeply gendered in intersectional ways. Finally, it suggests that creative engagements and arts-based approaches are crucial for understanding and resisting gendered urban violence and in generating empathetic transformation.