What is a Favella? (Homework help)

[knowitall]

DD needs to find out what a favella is (something to do with Brazil?) Please help.

Isn't it a slum? Shanty-town? I think it's favela with one L if you want to google it...

Thats right, how old is your DD? You could try the BBC website, they did a series of school programmes called Brazil 2000 which covered this. Otherwise the geography section on 'Staffordshire learning net' is fab and would probably have a link to something useful

ooh thanks

Shanty town in Brazil.

Message withdrawn

They have grown up around Rio on the hills - people who come to the town from the country and can't afford proper housing live there.

Sorry Pruni, I am from Rio, so thought for the record I would say... they are illegal settlements. Some of them haver grown to the size of cities and star to organize themselves. At the time of the elctions there is a lot of discussions about how much to legalize their "self-organized" instituttions, but surely not their own police! There are unfortunately inumerous fights between the "real" police and drug lords (whom usually buy favors from locals by patronizing favelas)which lead to a lot of bloodshed.

I remember studying Latin American shanty towns 20 years ago, when a graduate student. One book which made a big impression was 'The Myth of Marginality', by Janice Perlman. She argued that favelas were far more organised and integrated into Brazilian society than many at that time realised. I did a google search on her and came up with a much more recent conference paper of hers which you might find useful. here

I've seen them (from a distance) in Rio, but they're not places where tourists would go.