The paper aims at investigating the dilemmas involved in the recent turn of international humanitarian organizations to urban areas of the Global South. The incorporation of impoverished urban communities - such as Rio de Janeiro's favelas - in the landscape of humanitarian action results from a particular reading that connects urbanization processes with a redefinition of the scope of humanitarian action. The paper argues that the transposition of humanitarian protection and assistance to other situations of violence, such as Rio's favelas, is premised on the construction of slums as marginal sites of insecurity and as the epitome of all problems related to urban processes in developing and underdeveloped societies. Based on a review of Médecins sans Frontières's project in Complexo do Alemão - Rio de Janeiro, from 2007 to 2009, the paper concludes with a critical reading of the consequences of recognizing favelas (and the global slum) as a problem of security and protection, without acknowledging the complex democratic dimensions of local political struggles.
Humanitarian Action; Urban Violence; Médecins sans Frontières; Favelas; Rio de Janeiro