Communism, Community Organization, and Conflict in Rio de Janeiro”
Brodie Fischer
Northwestern University
Legal scholars have long been fascinated with the political potential of the “informal city” – the complex of shantytowns and low-income neighborhoods that dominate most metropolises of the global south, united by their marginal legal status and degraded physical infrastructure. Activists and observers have lauded “informal” community organization and justice as possible platforms for new forms of citizenship and collective regulation. Yet – given high political stakes -- it is notoriously difficult to gain any glimpse of the internal dynamics of these informal organizations, especially those that existed in the past, and thus to evaluate their potential as hotbeds of participatory citizenship.
Based on recently discovered trial records, this paper will analyze these issues by tracing the story of Antonio Magarinos Torres, a communist lawyer who was a central figure in Brazil’s shantytown politics in the 1950s. Admired for his role in founding Brazil’s first citywide shantytown federation, Torres later faced charges of land grabbing, violence, and political manipulation – precisely the abuses he’d built a career combating. While the accusations were politically motivated, the case’s extensive trial records and abundant press coverage revealed a wide variety of internal shantytown conflicts, ranging from ethnic and turf disputes to disagreements about the just bases for land claims or local rule-making. Magarino Torres’ political demise did not spell the end of shantytown organization in Rio. But his story highlights the difficulty of “informal” justice and organization in communities with deep internal divisions and a long history of political exploitation, and also demonstrates the ways in which politicians eager to limit the impact of local governance adeptly exploited such fragilities.
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