RIO DE JANEIRO — After decades of delay and pressure, Brazil announced Tuesday that it will henceforth use “favelas and urban communities” to categorize thousands of poor, urban neighborhoods, instead of the previous term “subnormal agglomerates” that was widely viewed as stigmatizing.
Starting in the 1990s, the national statistics and geography institute, known by its Portuguese acronym IBGE, began using “subnormal agglomerates” to describe places with irregular occupation and deficient public services.
The umbrella term included not just favelas — most commonly associated with dense, hillside neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro — but also a slew of other terms employed across Brazil, like grottoes, lowlands, stilted houses and more, where millions reside.
The name change announced in a statement follows a process of reflection that began in the 2000s, and IBGE held more than 20 internal meetings and then several more with a consultation group of outside experts, according to its geography coordinator, Cayo Franco.
The concept of “subnormality” referred to people’s living conditions, but “many times it was understood as the condition of the people themselves,” Franco told The Associated Press in a video call. It was also too vague to represent reality.
Further, “agglomeration” transmitted an image of people piled atop one another, said Theresa Williamson, executive director of a favela advocacy group, Catalytic Communities. Many of these neighborhoods aren’t recent; rather, they are consolidated, having been built up over generations with individual or collective investment, and in spite of chronic state negligence in providing sanitation, infrastructure, education and other services.
“When you have a term that’s pejorative, labeling such a huge portion of the country, it can only be counterproductive,” said Williamson. “You need terms that are more nuanced when you’re talking about such large sectors of society, especially that you need to be able to embrace and engage in constructive ways so that you (the government) can improve them, rather than sort of deny them any value.”
Rio state lawmaker Renata Souza, who was born and raised in the bayside Mare favela, one of the city’s most populous, said her doctorate in communications and culture taught her the importance of words, and she celebrated IBGE’s move.
“The word ‘subnormal’ is something that has always really affected me, because it gives the idea of an…
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