Since the 1990’s, Rocinha has been securing itself as a paradigm of touristic favela based on a model centered in the action of private companies outside the favela and in the indifference of the government. This article analyzes the practical and the discursive inflections which permitted the end of this paradigm and the emergence of a model based on public and private partnerships as well as in the organization of the local residents as entrepreneurs. Through field research and interviews, the perceptions and the justifications of these agents involved in the transformation of Santa Marta in a tourist attraction (the public sphere, tourism agencies, local residents) were examined. The hypothesis advocated here is that the Santa Marta, the first favela with a Pacifying Police Unit, offers a privileged point to observe the new power networks that defines the place to be occupied by the favelas in a project which makes Rio de Janeiro a postcard city.
Tourism; Favela; Rio de Janeiro; Poverty; Pacification