This document provides a literature review and analysis of walls throughout history and their changing meanings and purposes. It begins by discussing how walls have historically served defensive, protective, and exclusionary functions. It then analyzes current walls, noting a resurgence in wall-building globally for purposes of security, exclusion of immigrants/others, and control over territories and populations. The document specifically examines walls being built around favelas in Rio de Janeiro as a case study, arguing they function as "prison walls" to isolate and control the poor populations living there. Alternative solutions are proposed to address issues driving favela growth through inclusive policies rather than exclusionary walls.

1. Development: Theory and Practice
PO929
Dr. Tugba Basaran
Essay Title
- Walls – From Security to Exclusion -
Number of Words :
(5,404)
Filipa Oliveira Martins
Student Number 09909437
Brussels School of International Studies
University of Kent
May 2010

2. Walls – From Security to Exclusion
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―Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence‖
Robert Frost, Mending Wall, 1914
INTRODUCTION
Since the early times of the first settlers, humanity has always felt the need to
build walls around the spaces it inhabits – either for home or for protection
purposes from exterior menaces such as animals or weathering. In cities and in
countries (in their boundaries/frontiers), walls have played an important role in
their spatial configuration, dividing social classes, ethnic groups, professions,
religions, etc.
In academic literature, depending on the field of expertise analyzing it, the word
‗wall‘ has been awarded different meanings throughout times. Architects face it as
a design construction; engineers look more at the actual physical construction of a
wall – concrete, sand, metal, etc. Biologists, look at other kinds of walls like the
heart walls or cell walls. Ecologists study walls built by nature or handmade,
using trees and plants. Psychologists try to give meaning to walls built by human
beings in their relations with others and Sociologists award meaning to physical
and psychological walls built in, around and between societies, social groups and
different countries. Despite all these different perceptions of the meaning of
‗wall‘, the wall is perceived as an object and is a symbol of separation,
incarceration, confinement, inclusion, exclusion and frontier. Either with
straightforward or under covered meanings, walls do represent separation and
differentiation.
Rio de Janeiro started facing the process of ―favelization‖ in the 18th
century, with
the African Neighbourhoods, built by former African slaves who were not entitled
to land. For some, these were the first favelas. However these African former
slaves were pushed away to suburbs and it was not until the mid 20th
century that
new favelas, born of rural exodus, came into being. With no place to live and
difficulty in finding a job, these new residents in the big city started building
illegal settings in public land, near the most busy city centres, where they could

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attempt to find a job more easily and not spend unnecessary money in transport
and habitation. Nowadays, 1.3 million people live in approximately 750 favelas in
Rio de Janeiro. Numbers point out that Rio‘s population is growing at a 2.7% rate;
however in the favelas it is growing at a 7.5% rate (Cezar, 2002).
This paper will start with a brief discussion on theoretical considerations on the
concept of ‗wall‘ and those connected to it, such as boundaries, frontiers and
borders. Then it will evolve to discuss and interpret the transformation of the
meaning of walls - from defensive walls built around the cities in the time of Celts
and Romans, to ‗walls of shame‘ (name commonly given to both the
Palestine/Israel wall and the wall built on the border of the USA with Mexico) or
of exclusion, built in the 20th
and 21st
centuries. Furthermore, this paper will
discuss Rio de Janeiro as a Case Study. In Rio de Janeiro, the Government is
building walls around the favelas. Officially called ‗eco-limits‘, allegedly to
protect the Atlantic Forest from the invasion of urbanization, these walls are
submerged in controversy. Additionally, this paper will try to propose other
solutions to address the growth of favelas in Rio, seen that walls ―rarely work as
interdiction‖ (Brown, 2008). The Government of Rio de Janeiro should allocate
resources to inclusive programmes to deter further social degradation and
exclusion, and implement policies which build bridges of communication between
favelas and the city, rather than walls, which exclude and deepen social stigma.
This paper is both challenging and interesting, because it discusses geographical
walls and their social, historical and political meaning.
Walls: protection, division and exclusion
Walls isolate, protect and divide opposites, strangers, and antagonisms. Thus,
their main function ―ranges from the distinction that separates a subject from its
exteriority to the distinction that localises objects, from home‖ (Sennett, 2004).
Sennett argues that walls ‗shut close‘ and should be ‗porous‘ in order to allow
contact between the inside and the outside (Sennett, 2004).

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Because of their strategic positioning and structure, walls design and create a
spatial organisation of the places in and around them. Atun and Doratli state that
―with respect to the experience of people in relation to a space, a wall implies
enclosure, exclusion, division, discontinuity, disturbance‖ (Atun and Doratli,
2009), hence defining the space, the rules and regulations for admitted or denied
entrance; the ‗us‘ and ‗them‘. So, they do not only define the spatial space, but
they also define the social space and are a reflex of social statuses and divisions.
Walls can link (by enclosure/ encompassing) and divide (by exclusion) and, thus,
constitute the social and spatial strata of a city or a country; walls can be seen as
an internal ‗metaphor for a barrier, a border or a boundary‘ (Atun and Doratli,
2009).
When human kind started to settle, walls became a necessity. One of the most
known ancient walls is the wall of Jericho, which dates far back to the 8th
millennium BC. In Europe, the Celts built the Oppida – largely fortified cities –
and the Romans were known by their long stone walls, protecting their
settlements. In the middle ages, walls started to be surrounded by ditches which
allowed greater protection against foreign attacks and in the Era of Expansionism,
territorial expansion was marked by the settlement and creation of cities, which
were also walled, in order to reflect both the military power and the status of the
occupier.
The Chinese invention of gunpowder around the year 800 AD, however, rendered
walls less effective, because enemies could easily break the wall with incendiary
and explosive projectiles thrown by catapults or, later, with a blast of cannons.
Being commonly known as ‗defensive walls‘, these walls could also fall under the
category of ‗enclosure walls‘, which, as Usman argues, ―may have been a good
indicator of the power of the local rulers and a symbol of cohesive social
organization within the settlements‖ (Usman, 2003). Connah adds an interesting
insight when he states that ―these walls may have been primarily a protective
strategy from increased competition for resources, caused by expanded population
or environmental deterioration‖ (Connah, 2001), thus falling under the category of
‗defensive‘.

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These are the ‗defensive walls‘ and/or ‗enclosure walls‘. Nonetheless, walls can
be divided into several other categories. Marcuse (Marcuse, 1989) defines five
types of walls, according to the functions attributed to them:
- ‗Prison walls‘ – physical, moral, economic or social walls aimed at
preserving a group‘s identity and self-determination, through either
isolation or segregation, in enclaves and ghettos;
- ‗Barricade walls‘ – these walls offer security by allowing the community
to feel united by common socially shared symbols and expressions
- ‗Walls of aggression‘ – military and police patrolling as well as fences
which are an expression of dominium, strength and force
- ‗Sheltering walls‘ – as the name states, they shelter the inside from outside
interference and protect people and goods, privilege and wealth, providing
privacy. These walls exclude by making admission compulsory.
- ‗Castle walls of domination‘ – being the visible sign of hubris and
superiority, these walls shelter government officials, business men/women,
and classes who judge themselves superior either economically, socially or
politically. (Marcuse, 1989 – adapted)
In this division and categorization we can see that walls have many functions,
such as protection and shelter, aggression, exclusion and even domination and
control, depending on who builds them, with what aim and towards/against
whom.
In the urban context, walls define social spaces and categories, as stated above.
However, they also act as borders and fences, separating ‗us‘ from ‗them‘, ‗me‘
from the ‗other‘, from whom I am estranged. Urban walls allow us to feel
protected from the outside, which is often deemed hostile (noise, pollution,
robbery, and climate). As a social construct, walls are the visible face of social,
moral and, at times, religious constructions of the ‗self‘ and of the ‗other‘,
demarcating borders between ‗us‘ and ‗them‘.
As I will be referring further walls which are connected to geographical and
political borders and frontiers, it is important now to make a reference to them.

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Walls as borders/frontiers are a very important point to the explanation of the
main argument, because walls also function as frontiers inside cities, and, in this
case, inside Rio de Janeiro.
As the world evolves, literature on borders and frontiers also shifts its focus of
attention from one issue to another, and develops new ways of looking towards
borders. A couple of decades ago, literature on borders considered them a visible
physical line which was the expression of economic, political and social will and
treaties, however it tends to grab a more sociological view nowadays, considering
the ways in which borders include and/or exclude peoples, territories, policies and
cultures and how they create and are an expression of identities.
Wilson and Donnan (1998) contend that borders can be defined by three elements:
(1) a ‗legal borderline‘ which works as a separation and conjunction of states; (2)
‗the physical structures of the state‘, demarcating and protecting this borderline,
and which are composed of the state, materialized in its people and institutions;
and (3) the ‗frontiers‘ – the zones around the borderlines. In other words, ―these
three elements of borders respectively demarcate and negotiate the territory, the
state, and the identity related to an existing, or nascent, nation-state (Tronvoll,
1999).
Concurring with this line of thought, Zarka adds that ―the frontier is not only what
separates or demarcates but also what allows the recognition and the encounter
with the other‖ (Zarka, 2007). He further expands this sociological argument by
adding that frontiers may have both a positive and a negative effect. For him,
these dual effects are true
“for the psychological level (the construction of the
representation of the self, of the intimacy, of what is not
available nor at the reach of the other), the ethics (the
constitution of the self responsible for its acts) and the politics
(the distinction of the national citizenship from the worldwide
citizenship).” (Zarka, 2007)
According to this argument, what is important to combat nowadays is not the
frontiers and borders but the construction of walls in societies. In sum,
‗cosmopolitism has to try and put in place a policy of hospitality instead of one of
hostility‘ (Zarka, 2007).

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Taking this into account, what is of added interest for the scope of this paper is
this sociological perspective onto walls and onto the process of walling either in
or out. In the case of Rio de Janeiro, it is not the walls themselves which raise the
question (as they are still being constructed), but the process of walling in the
poor population of the favelas in the south of the city, the ‗noble‘ zone. Taking
Marcuse‘s above cited definition of five types of walls, we would include these
walls on only one category, which is the ‗prison walls‘, used to ‗preserve enclaves
and ghettos‘ (Atun and Doratli, 2009). Favela inhabitants are deemed poor and
criminals, therefore it is an easier way out to wall them in, in order to control
them, like prisoners in prisons – walling them in and treating them like criminals
creates an antecedent and a justification for further surveillance and punishment.
Current Walls
In the last decades, we have witnessed a resurgence of the need of walling.
Current walls include the border between the United States of America (US/USA)
and Mexico and the wall between Palestine and Israel which reference each other
for legitimacy and share technology and subcontracting; in South Africa there is a
maze of walls and checkpoints, the most controversial of which being the
electrified security barrier on its Zimbabwe border. Saudi Arabia has a 3m high
post structure along its border with Yemen, which, some argue (Brown, 2008),
may be followed by walling their entire country. Cruder walls have been built by
India along its borders with both Pakistan and Bangladesh. Uzbekistan fenced out
Kirgizstan in 1999. Botswana built an electric fence along its border with
Zimbabwe in 2003. Brunei is walling out immigrants and smugglers coming from
Limbang. The Gaza Strip, between Egypt and Gaza, was brought to the world‘s
attention in June 2007, due to the Israeli imposed blockade on Gaza.
And the list further evolves with the construction of walls within walls: there are
gated communities everywhere in the US, especially in Southern California
communities, near the wall at the border with Mexico. There is a proliferation of
walls around the Israeli settlements in the West Bank – walls within walls, to

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grant the ones walled in a major sense of protection – these could be, following
Marcuse (1989), either ‗barricade walls‘ or ‗sheltering walls‘, depending on the
aim they are built for. There are even walls around the long disputed Museum of
Tolerance site, in Jerusalem. In Spain, the European Union finances and supports
triple walls around Spanish enclaves in Morocco, to prevent illegal immigration
and smuggling to enter Spain. Even Morocco itself maintains a 2.7km long
defensive berm aimed at securing resources in the long-disputed Western Sahara.
Thailand and Malaysia agreed upon the construction of a concrete wall along their
common land border. In Padua, the local municipality built the Via Anelli Wall to
separate white middle class neighbourhoods from the so-called African ghetto,
where most new immigrants live. (Brown, 2008)
Despite all the controversy around the construction of walls in and by democratic
nations – which would make a whole argument for another paper – the future does
not seem to be heading towards the end of the wall-era: the US military started to
build a 5km long and 3.6m high defensive wall on the green line in Bagdad, in the
predominantly Sunni district of Adhamiya, in 2007. Due to terror threats, Israel
plans to build a security barrier across its Sinai desert border with Egypt. The
United Arab Emirates are designing a wall for their Oman border. Kuwait wants a
wall in the demilitarized zone nearing its border with Iraq, which was protected by
a fence during war times. As a result of long lasting land disputes and Taliban-
related issues, Pakistan recently started to build fences and posts on its border
with Afghanistan. ―Serious proposals have been put forward to follow completion
of the US-Mexican wall with a wall along the US border with Canada‖, and, also,
―to find a means of walling the ocean passage between North Africa and Spain or,
simply, to wall off the islands that provide that passage‖ (Brown, 2008).
Durafour concurs with Brown when he states that ―walls are not deemed to
disappear‖ (Durafour, 2007). His argument is that ‗our times‘ are ‗times of influx,
nomadic migrations and ‗deterritorialization‘‘, which are ‗symmetrically
accompanied by ever growing sedentary, protectionist and uneasy conservative
reactions‘, such as the construction of concrete walls along borders and within
cities.

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Border walls vary in what they intend to deter: (1) poor people, drugs, weapons,
other contraband, terror, ethnic or religious mixing, (2) illegal workers, asylum
seekers, smuggled taxable goods, kidnapped or enslaved youth and women, and
other political features. The issues which fall under the first category may also be
found in walls within cities, such as the exclusion of the poor immigrants in
Padua, and the walls in Rio, around the favelas, excluding the poor, illegal
settlers, who are seen as drug dealers and violent contrabandists.
However, as Brown argues, ―[walling] does little to actually stop the illegal
migration, drug smuggling or terrorism that it most frequently is animated by and
legitimated by‖ (Brown, 2008). She further expands her argument saying that the
reason for such a conclusion is quite simple: ―immigrants, drugs and terrorists are
not entering nations, because land borders are lacking‖, instead, they are
‗rerouted‘ and ‗otherwise transformed‘ by border walls. And she concludes,
―...walls may augment the technologies, cost, social organization, experiences and
meanings of what they purport to lock out, but they rarely work as interdiction‖
(Brown, 2008).
This is proved by what we experience from the news around the world: the West
Bank wall has not reduced Palestinian violence and hostility towards Israel; illegal
immigrants continue to cross the border from Mexico to the United States,
excavating tunnels and opening breaches in the wall; and the European Union has
realized that drug smuggling does not drive drug use. Several RAND corporation
studies have shown that policy change towards drug production control,
trafficking control and law enforcement in local markets and borders have failed
in most nations to prevent drug availability; nevertheless, investments in treatment
have proved a reduction of harms of dependent users and of society, but have
failed to reduce the prevalence of drug use (RAND, 2009; Reuter, 2009; and
Kilmer, 2010).
This is the core argument of this paper: as walls ―rarely work as interdiction‖
(Brown, 2008), governments should allocate resources to inclusive social
programmes to deter further social degradation and exclusion, and implement
policies which strengthen hospitality rather than hostility.

10. Walls – From Security to Exclusion
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As Brown brilliantly sums up,
―Like the Berlin Wall, the contemporary walls, in particular
those which are built around democracies, necessarily produce
inside effects: their outside becomes their inside. [...] They
encourage the domination of an ever enclosed and supervised
society, instead of the open society that they pretend to defend.
The new walls are not only inefficient and destitute of any
power; they hide new forms of xenophobia and autistic
withdrawal‖. (Brown, 2010)
The Walls in Rio de Janeiro
―Their outside becomes their inside‖, states Brown (Brown, 2010), talking about
walls constructed on borders, demarcating frontiers, the ‗us‘ from the ‗them‘. It is
exactly this construction of the ‗outside‘ and of the ‗inside‘ which is mirror of
psychological and societal constructions of space that we see in Rio de Janeiro –
the distinction between the ‗in-group‘ and the ‗out-group‘ (Tronvoll, 1999).
Bourdieu explains that the idea of difference, of a gap, is at the basis of the very
notion of space, that is, ―a set of distinct and coexisting positions which are
exterior to one another and which are defined in relation to one another through
relations of proximity, vicinity, or distance, as well as through order relations,
such as above, bellow and between” (Bourdieu, 1991). For him, ―spatial distances
on paper are equivalent to social distances‖ (Bourdieu, 1991). This is exactly what
the walls being built around the favelas in Rio de Janeiro represent: social
distances which are now being materialized by a 3m high wall of concrete.
In the first quarter of the year 2009, the Government of Rio de Janeiro (GoRJ)
began the construction of a 3m high wall of concrete around 13 to 191
favelas in
the South region of the city, the ‗noble‘ zone, because of the view it offers to
tourists into the ocean and the Atlantic Forest. With an estimated length of 11km,
1
I have not been able to find the actual project of the construction of such walls, even though I
researched in the site of the GoRJ, of the Brazilian Federal Government and of EMOP; as well as
in sites related to Law in Brazil and even contacted embassies and tried to establish contact with
the GoRJ, but with no success. Thus, in less reliable sources, numbers range from 11 to 19 favelas.
I believe that the discrepancy arises from the fact that 11 favelas are situated in the South area of
Rio, while others are scattered around other areas of the city; and focus has been given to those in
the South, the ‗noble‘ zone.

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this wall (or walls) – officially denominated as ‗eco-limits‘ - will cost the local
Government an investment of R$ 40 million (equivalent to USD 23 million).
A Brazilian Research Institute called ―Datafolha‖ recently conducted interviews
to know what the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro thought about these walls. The
research showed that richer parts of the population tended to be more against the
construction of the walls than the poorer, who live and will live inside such walls.
According to this study, 51% of the poor tend to think that the walls are a good
idea, while 50% of the rich tend to think exactly the opposite. The numbers get
closer when only inhabitants from the favelas are being interviewed: 47% in
favour and 46% against. This study, however, bears a margin of error which
amounts to 4%, which, being rectified could bring to a technical tie in the end
(Datafolha, 2009).
These numbers are challenged by the opinion survey led by the Rocinha
Resident‘s Association which showed that the majority of the residents (1000
residents out of cc 1050) were opposed to the construction of the wall, against
only 50 in favour of it (Andrade, 2009).
The GoRJ, in the person of Mr. Ícaro Moreno Júnior, director of EMOP2
, clarified
that the eco-limits programme just follows the rules of the law 11.428/2006 which
bans the suppression of Atlantic Forest primary vegetation, to construct urban
areas. Mr Júnior further argues that the favelas expanded 7% between 1999 and
2008, which is equivalent to 3 million square meters of devastated green areas
(EMOP, April 2009).
In contradiction to the GoRJ, the Pereira Passos Institute reveals numbers which
show that between 1999 and 2008, favelas have indeed grown 6.88% in Rio but
those that are planned to receive the walls have grown, all together, only 1.18%.
The favela Dona Marta, the first to receive the wall, has even shrunk in 0.99%. In
fact, 69.7% of the green areas are occupied by middle and upper class buildings.
The favelas account only for 30% of the total of the occupied areas (IPP, 2009).
So, the question imposed is: for what purpose are these walls being built?
2
EMOP stands for Empresa Municipal de Obras Públicas – the Public Works Agency of the GoRJ

12. Walls – From Security to Exclusion
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Silva, from Ibase (Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicas3
),
attempts an explanation to the construction of these walls: ―I think that this
initiative is political marketing, with the aim of showing to the rest of the
population in Rio that the local government is controlling the favelas‖ (De Castro,
2009).
In support of this argument, Hallier comments that, ―where walls are being built,
dialogue and cooperation do not have a right to the city anymore‖ (Hallier, 2008),
and Mansur argues that a top-down policy approach has been put forward in the
favelas of Rio de Janeiro, with a ‗social control at 100%‘, ―completely
disconnected from the reality and with permanent control of the life of favela
residents by police forces‖ (Mansur, 2009). These comments refer back to the
statement that these are ‗prison-like‘ (Marcuse, 1989) walls, where movements
are controlled and ghettos are created.
―Walls show the ‗in-governability‘ of the world, a result of either the law or of the
power politics‖, states Brown (Brown, 2009). This only reveals lack of national
sovereignty and may contribute to a development and escalation of new violent
means and opposing forces against the power which institutes the walls.
In a meeting with representatives of the Rocinha favela, EMOP spokesperson
explained that the project is based upon data on the damages caused by the
expansion of the targeted communities into the Atlantic Forest, e.g. landslides,
legal suits against the local government due to deaths related to occupation of risk
areas, accumulation of garbage and drainage needs (EMOP, 30/04/09). The
proposed project for the construction of a wall around Rocinha includes the
creation of an ecological park and works in various areas of the favela, e.g. the
construction and set up of an Environment Study Centre, the construction of new
houses and the tilling and drainage of the roads. By the end of the meeting, the
Rocinha representatives accepted all the proposed programmes except the
construction of the ‗eco-limits‘, based upon the data they had previously collected
on the above mentioned opinion survey they had conducted in Rocinha.
3
Brazilian Institute for Socio-economic Analysis

13. Walls – From Security to Exclusion
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In the last years, the GoRJ has been also implementing the ‗Favela-Bairro‘
Programme with the aim of turning favelas into habitable urban districts through
infrastructure works (Pinheiro, 2008). There are 143 favelas benefiting from this
programme, which account for approximately 556.000 citizens (Vial, 2009).
Furthermore, the Federal Government has also approved a programme which may
be used to compensate the favelas for the construction of the walls, even though
this might be arguable. The PAC (Plan for Acceleration and Growth) counts with
R$ 13 billion of the General Brazilian Budget allocated for the urbanization of the
favelas in the next four years, and it also includes regularization of property rights
as well as social support for the families contemplated for the works (Uemura,
2009).
Positioning itself against the construction of the walls by the GoRJ, the Civil
Society Organization ―Rede Rio Criança‖ issued a report on the issue of the
construction of the ―eco-limits‖, where it is stated that these eco-limits can easily
be transformed into socio-limits, as a materialization of social behaviours and
prejudice against people living in the favelas, deemed to be poor, criminals and
drug-dealers, hence exaggerating the stigmas related to them (Andrade, 2009).
Seen this, first of all, the project can deepen the cleavage between those living in
the favelas and middle class residents, who live close by. Second of all, focusing
merely on technicalities, the social issues stay out of the discussion, which leads
to a simplified vision towards the favela and the social problems which have to be
dealt with everyday by their residents, such as lack of schools and poor
transportation; poor sewerage and waste collection; criminality and social
criminalization of favela residents.
When a wall is constructed in order to separate and contain people, new social and
spatial segregation forms are being shaped. Walls cannot be used as
―prophylactics against confrontation with internal domestic ills‖ (Brown, 2008),
producing a spatially demarcated group.
These walls target a social inconvenient, which is better off when hidden behind
concrete walls (Andrade, 2009). The Portuguese have got a saying which goes
‗whatever is not seen, is estranged from the heart‘. Hence, these populations, by

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being surrounded by a wall, are put away from the heart of the city and from the
problems that the local government has got to tackle.
In the end, the construction of these ‗eco-limits‘ reiterates the semantic camp of
the word ‗favela‘, as a synonym of danger to society and, at present, to nature too.
What has been done to deter the construction of such walls?
- FAFERJ4
is facing the political powers in order to prevent the construction
of the walls;
- Rocinha Resident‘s Association did an opinion survey which showed that
the majority (1000 residents) were against the wall, against only 50 in
favour;
- Social Movements and Human Rights Organizations publicly support
FAFERJ;
- The Land and Habitation Unit of the State Counsel of Rio de Janeiro
opened an investigation (instrução 02/2009) with the aim of investigating
whether or not these walls are a violation of fundamental human rights by
the state towards the population living in the favelas. Pending on the
findings, a civil law claim might follow;
- The Organization ―Justiça Global‖ (Global Justice) presented the case to
the Council of the United Nations, which asked the Federal Government
for explanations5
(Andrade, 2009).
These social movements are a clear sign of the controversy which surrounds the
programme of the GoRJ. Eduardo Marques, director of the Study Centre of the
Metropolis (CEM), in São Paulo, comments that ―the wall in Rio is a good
example of the culpabilization of the favela for the great majority of the problems
in the city. This policy is just a means to suggest order in what is considered the
disordered favela.‖(Uemura, 2009)
4
Federação das Associações de Favelas do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – Favela Associations
Federation in the State of Rio de Janeiro
5
I was not able to gt hold of any explanations being presented to the Council of the United Nations
by the Brazilian Federal Government

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There is, however, more controversy surrounding the issue of the favelas and the
construction of the walls. Positioning himself in favour of the construction of the
wall in Rocinha, where he lives, Wiliam de Oliveira, President of the Popular
Movement for the Favelas, states that ―we are not talking about a wall which is
going to take away the freedom of the residents, neither is it to separate them from
the city. It is only a construction to preserve the environment.‖ He further
discusses that ―often people build their houses in risk areas and it is important that
this no longer happens‖ (Magro, 2009). However clear it might be that these walls
constitute a barrier to the continuing devastation of the Atlantic Forest, they will
also be used to facilitate the combat against rising criminality in the favelas. They
are a deterrent to drug dealers‘ movements and an impediment for them to run
into the Forest to hide from the police (Magro, 2009). This thesis is supported by
the fact that the police intends to build vigilance posts at the entrance of the
favelas. There are even those who talk about digital cameras, to record who is
getting in and out of the favelas (Magro, 2009).
This argument was put forward at the time of the first presentation of the project,
when the local governor, Sérgio Cabral, maybe inadvertently, stated that the
priority of local authorities was to prevent drug traffic and militias (Amaral,
2009).
Maurício Ramos, coordinator of the NGO ―Rede de Comunidades Contra a
Violência6
‖ sustains that the walls ―will strengthen discrimination against the
residents in the favelas‖. Along the same line, João Luiz Duboc Pinaud, member
of the National Commission of Human Rights of the Brazilian Bar Association,
considers that the construction of walls will only reinforce stigmas and bring to
broad daylight the sharp division of classes in Brazil. ―With a wall around the
favelas, everything is more clean‖, he says, ―inside, the poor stay poor and alleged
criminals, and outside people live the glamour of the beaches of Rio, without
„favelados‟7
making the landscape dirty‖ (Amaral, 2009).
6
Network of Communities Against Violence
7
Those living in favelas

16. Walls – From Security to Exclusion
Page 16 of 24
In an attempt to reply to such comments, Mr. Júnior recognises that the best
would be to supervise the illegal constructions, however, he says, ―it is not an
easy thing to do, because people do the transportation of materials at night and
suddenly, the next morning, there is a new house built in the favela‖ (Moraes,
2009).
This action of walling in the poor almost ranges the brim of a ‗quasi-sanitary
isolation‘ (Paquot, 2006), practised against the different, the poor, the unknown,
the unbreakable, the un-ruled. Walls are broadly perceived as violence and as an
impediment to peace. And the walls in Rio are no different. Falling under
Marcuse‘s category of ‗prison walls‘, the walls in Rio segregate and exclude a
population who has been trying to fit in an hostile society, which does not seem to
be able to accept that ‗eyesore‘ in their horizon. These walls only postpone the
resolution of the real social problems lived in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

17. Walls – From Security to Exclusion
Page 17 of 24
Some proposals and Conclusion
In my opinion, building these walls is to ―place a bet in war‖ (ANF, 2009),
because this will only be regarded as a challenge to the much segregated
communities of the favelas in Rio. The local population may even use these walls
as a basis for the construction of new apartments. Such a wall only serves to
create bigger distances between the asphalt, where middle and upper classes live,
and the favela, and it will not work as interdiction to further constructions.
Delacerda (2009) proposes a package of social and educational projects to
implement instead of the wall:
- Education programmes which tackle and promote the respect for the
environment;
- The construction of social centres, to provide the youth with an alternative
to being on the streets;
- To have forester rangers imposing sanctions on those violating the
environment;
- To move the houses which are in risk areas and reforest the zones formerly
occupied by them (Delacerda, 2009).
If I were to agree with the GoRJ upon the fact that the real problem is the invasion
and destruction of the Atlantic Forest, I would then propose a system of satellite
vigilance, which would allow the GoRJ to supervise further construction of illegal
settlements and act according to the law, destroying such settlements when built.
However, if the problem is the destruction of the Atlantic Forest, why is the GoRJ
walling in the poor living in the favelas instead of simply walling the Atlantic
Forest or building a fence around it? In the same line of thought, the FAFERJ
proposed the construction of ‗eco-trails‘ instead of eco-walls. These trails would
allow the population to still have access to the forest, for leisure, collect of fruits
and sports, but would prevent further constructions.

18. Walls – From Security to Exclusion
Page 18 of 24
Following the proposal of FAFERJ, Ruben Cesar Fernandes, coordinator of the
project ‗Viva Rio‘, puts forward the solution of planting natural enclosures, with
the same function as the walls, but with a whole new sociological meaning (De
Castro, 2009).
Other proposals suggest that the money be allocated to the promotion of social
apartments in vacant and/or abandoned buildings, as well as to the urbanization of
forgotten historical areas in the city, while improving the transport net and
investing on police and security (Cançado, 2009).
With the construction of the walls, vertical constructions instead of horizontal,
will take place, further endangering urban spaces and lives, as well as worsening
the already existing socio-environmental issues in the overcrowded favelas
(Ribeiro, 2009).
These walls will only fulfil their purpose if the GoRJ becomes what it has not
been until now: a constant presence in the favelas, monitoring illegal
constructions and promoting social programmes which tackle subjects ranging
from legal rights to education, passing by inclusion, poverty alleviation and
promotion of welfare and dignified living conditions.
However, walls – either ‗defensive‘ or exclusive – carry the message that
something is not right with the people living ‗on the other side‘ of the wall; they
―produce a spatially demarcated ‗us‘‖ (Brown, 2008). Walls are not a solution,
nor a deterrent. Social programmes focusing mostly education for the self, the
individual, the community, tolerance and respect for the ‗otherness‘,
encompassing real problems and the people in the target communities, might be
one solution; or, at least, part of a more comprehensive solution to problems
affecting conflicting and divided communities and peoples. A broad habitation
policy, which turns the favelas into integrating parts of the city, would also be a
valuable path to follow. Without proper programmes which build bridges of
communication between people and government instead of walls to divide them,
no sustainable peace can be obtained; neither can the residents in the favelas be
awarded a plentiful ―Right to the City‖ (UN, 2010).

19. Walls – From Security to Exclusion
Page 19 of 24
Thus, giving a speech at the UN Habitat World Urban Forum 5 (UN, 2010), held
in Rio de Janeiro, in March 2010, the Mayor of Grenoble, Michel Destot, stated
that
―The right to the city is a fundamental right for all global
citizens. Twenty years ago the majority of poor people lived in
rural areas, now the majority live in cities. The city is still a
place of experimentation, but we must work to avoid
segregation, exclusion and frustration, by making greater
coherence‖.
Recalling Bourdieu, ―spatial differences on paper are equivalent to social
distances‖ (Bourdieu, 1991), but, in this case, spatial differences on the ground are
fruit of social distances and equivalent to distances materialised in a wall.

20. Walls – From Security to Exclusion
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