CC BY
13
UDC 338.48 EDN: MUPYVU
DOI: 10.24412/1995-0411-2022-2-119-130
Débora Anizio RIOS
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) PhD in Social Memory, Associate Professor
Maria Amalia Silva Alves de OLIVEIRA
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) PhD in Human Sciences (Anthropology), Associate Professor
TOURISM IN THE PROCESS OF URBAN INTERVENTIONS: THE CASE OF LITTLE AFRICA, IN RIO DE JANEIRO (BRAZIL)
Abstract. The article analyses the implementation process of the Porto Maravilha project in the Port Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), covering the period of one decade (2011-2021). Returning to previous projects, the article begins by describing the territory in question from different models of urban intervention, presenting the space in question as a target of disputes. In this scenario, assets recognized as World Heritage, underground memories and narratives of resistance provide possibilities for reflection about the social function of tourism.
Keywords: Porto Maravilha, Cais do Valongo, Heritage, Memory, Tourism
Acknowledgments: Authors are thankful for the support received from Carlos Chagas Foundation for Research Support of the State of Rio de Janeiro; National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq); Coordenagao de Aperfeigoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES).
Citation: Rios, D. A., & de Oliveira, M. A. S. A. (2022). Tourism in the Process of Urban Interventions: The case of Little Africa, in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Sovremennye problemy servisa i turizma [Service and Tourism: Current Challenges], 16(2), 119-130. doi: 10.24412/1995-04112022-2-119-130.
Article History
Received 7 April 2022 Accepted 1 June 2022
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
© 2022 the Author(s)
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Стр. 119-130
ОеЬога Anízio Иоз, & Мапа Amdliа Silva Alves de ОПуека
УДК 338.48 EDN: MUPYVU
DOI: 10.24412/1995-0411-2022-2-119-130
Дебора Анизио РИОС
Федеральный университет Рио-де-Жанейро (Рио-де-Жанейро, Бразилия) кандидат в сфере наук о наследии, доцент
Мария Амалия Силва Алвеш де ОЛИВЕЙРА
Федеральный университет Рио-де-Жанейро (Рио-де-Жанейро, Бразилия) кандидат наук о человеке (антропология), доцент
ТУРИЗМ И ПРОЦЕССЫ УРБАНИЗАЦИИ: КЕЙС МАЛОЙ АФРИКИ, РИО-ДЕ-ЖАНЕЙРО (БРАЗИЛИЯ)
В статье анализируется процесс реализации проекта Порту-Маравилья в портовой зоне города Рио-де-Жанейро (Бразилия), охватывающий период одного десятилетия (2011-2021 гг.). Проект предполагал масштабную реконструкцию порта Рио-де-Жанейро и территорию вокруг него к летним Олимпийским играм 2016 г. В статье анализируются предыдущие градостроительные проекты, а также приводится описание рассматриваемой территории с точки зрения различных моделей градостроительства. В работе портовая территория рассматривается в качестве спорного и неоднозначного объекта. В этом сценарии объекты, признанные мировым наследием, а также воспоминания и нарративы о противоречиях в реализации проекта дают возможность для размышлений о социальной функции туризма.
Ключевые слова: Порту-Маравилья, Кайш-ду-Валонго, наследие, память, туризм
Для цитирования: Риос Д.А., Оливейра М.А.С.А. Туризм и процессы урбанизации: кейс Малой Африки, Рио-де-Жанейро (Бразилия) // Современные проблемы сервиса и туризма. 2022. Т.16. №2. С. 119-130. DOI: 10.24412/1995-0411-2022-2-119-130.
Дата поступления в редакцию: 7 апреля 2022 г. Дата утверждения в печать: 1 июня 2022 г.
Introduction
The most recent urban intervention in the port area of Rio de Janeiro has completed ten years in 2021. The so-called Porto Mara-vilha (Wonderful Port) project was a public policy that culminated in a series of developments for the territory. Considering its relationship with the mega-events that took place in the city of Rio de Janeiro and in Brazil, that are connected to a political strategy of image repositioning, which adopted measures that aimed at preserving the heritage, to establish cultural policies, by the construction of new equipment and with urban infrastructure works; provide multiple possibilities for reflection when taking as an object of analysis the Porto Maravilha project and the territory occupied by the Port Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro. In such possibilities of analysis, the specific contours of the intervention model, reveal the place of tourism in the process at hand.
At the center of these facts is the emergence of the territoriality of Pequena Africa (Little Africa), an identity evoked to designate the physical space that houses a set of heritage assets and anchors the narrative about the African diaspora in that space. Among the heritage assets that are parte of Pequena Africa, the archeological site of Cais do Valongo stands out as a major symbol of the regime that enslaved millions of black people. The beginning of the process of attributing value to the Cais do Valongo dates to the period when the infrastructure works for the Porto Mara-vilha project were being carried out, when its ruins were found in 2011. Since then, different social groups have turned to this space claiming the right for memory, to a repositioning of identities and recognition of the unfolding of the enslavement process within Brazilian culture. At the same time, the recognition of the Cais do Valongo Archeological Site as a World Heritage Site has elevated Pequena Africa to the status of a Tourist Site, attracting tourists and visitors who go there motivated by the most diverse interests.
The objective of this paper is to analyze the trajectory of the Porto Maravilha project
on the last 10 years, focusing on its implications to the tourist activity in the Region. The research methodology on which lays on the present reflection is based on research material collected for the first author's thesis and the second author's research project.
This paper is organized as it follows: initially, a brief trajectory of the port of Rio de Janeiro will be addressed, since it is considered that its conformation and its interventions are the result of historical, social, and political contexts that relate to global experiences, especially regarding the view of cities as enterprises of a competitive market. In the sequence, the emergence of counter-hegemonic narratives will be discussed, based on the emergence of the Cais do Valongo Archaeological Site, and how the articulation around this site allowed new developments for the territory, although controversies over public policies for its maintenance will be highlighted. Finally, we will raise some characteristic aspects of tourism in the territory, linked to the diaspora, education, and culture, along with the possibilities and limitations of the actions in the territory, which suggest expanding the view of the region and new strategies for its safeguard.
Port Zone and Urban
Intervention Models
Founded in March 1565, by Estacio de Sa, the city of Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro, with its bay of calm waters, was taken as a natural port. First by sea, as a good mooring and, later, by the discovery of gold in Minas Gerais in the 18th century, it became the main commercial port among the Portuguese exploration colonies (Turazzi, 2016). Such historical conformations boosted the city and its relations with the world, since, as a consequence of its economic growth, it gained political relevance being named capital of the Portuguese colony in 1763, and later its headquarters, and the Republic in 1889 (Lenzi & Santos, 2005).
However, with the end of the 19th century, the Port of Rio1 lost its prestige in face of the country's newest organized port in Santos (in the Province of Sao Paulo). Structural problems, such as silting of Guanabara Bay, limited
its capacity to receive large ships, generating high customs costs in cargo transportation, turned it unattractive. Thus, in the early twentieth century, an urban reform was undertaken, inspired by the works of Mayor Hauss-man in Paris, which would shape the port area as it is envisioned today (Benchimol, 1992).
The characteristics of this intervention were pointed out by Lenzi and Santos (2005), Turazzi (2016), Guimaraes (2014) and Benchimol (1992), among others. They demonstrate the elitist character of the project, which became popular as "boot down". This name was given because what marked the urban transformations in the years that followed was the forced eviction of the low-income population through the demolition of its housing constructions, causing the exodus of these residents to the northern and western parts of the city. In addition, this period was also the moment of greater repression of Afro-daysporic cultural manifestations, or those considered dissident from the values cultivated by the republican elite, in a period when Rio was aiming to become "a possible Europe" (Velloso, 1987). However, it can be said about these processes that
[...] they leave their marks, even those centers that have undergone extensive modernization and urban remodeling projects, express conceptions that have marked the urban social-spatial organization and have contributed to the center remaining the place of diversity of the city's historical forms and contents. (Paes-Luchiari, 2006:45).
In this sense, the 1980s, marked by a process of active popular participation and conquest of rights, after a period of thirty years in a Military Dictatorship, sealed a moment of revisionism about the present past by civil society, organizations and researchers
(Rios, 2020). Their gaze invariably turned to spaces such as historic centers and port areas, as places that, due to their "forgetfulness" throughout the century, would have the potential of remembrance in the present of a more plural and heterogeneous past.
Part of these actions took place in the heritage field, which had the notion of historical and artistic heritage expanded to that of cultural heritage, in addition to the fact that the Brazilian Federal Constitution, of 1988, introduced the idea of cultural rights recognizing quilombola identities2 and their territories (Vassalo & Cicaclo, 2015). In this sense, in 1988, the Sagas Project was decreed - an acronym for the port districts Saude, Gamboa and Santo Cristo3. According to Guimaraes (2014), the Sagas Environmental Protection Area changed the status of several spaces and around 2,000 assets in the region. Classifying buildings and places as 'historical' and 'cultural', according to the author, "[...] this area of protection demarcated the frontiers of a new modality of intervention for the Port Zone, indicating which spaces were inalienable and which, on the other hand, were inalienable, could be transformed or sold." (Guimaraes, 2014 : 30).
Later in 2001, a new plan was launched. The Plan of the Port of Rio accentuated the possibilities of real estate speculation, since they used rhetoric classifying the port spaces "[...] from categories such as 'empty', 'degraded' and 'abandoned'" (Guimaraes, 2014 : 34), aiming at potential investors. It was, in fact, in anticipation of the progress of this plan that the construction of a Latin American branch of the Guggenheim Museum was sought, which was made unfeasible in 2005, due to the negative repercussion of the proposal among the media, architects and civil society. Its construction was considered
1 "Rio" is popularly used as a short name of Rio de Janeiro.
2 The concept of quiombola identity is understood here according to Salomao & Castro (2018 : 237), who define it as a struggle "[...] for social and territorial rights in being desolate subjects linked to a shared history of resistance and exploitation, this because the abolition of slavery was not accompanied by guaranteed rights, placing them at the margins of society. Therefore, there is the evident establishment of a new legal relationship between the State and these traditional peoples, based on the recognition of cultural and ethnic diversity".
3 Neighborhood areas from the port of Rio de Janeiro.
inappropriate due to its "shopping center character" in the region. (Guimaraes, 2014).
This dynamic is close to Harvey's (2005) reflection when he articulates the means by which late capitalism seeks to raise what he came to call "monopoly rents". According to the author, a good part of the statement is the result of discursive constructions, which are based on "[...] historical narratives, interpretations and meanings of collective memories, meanings of cultural practices, etc.: there is always a strong social and discursive element active in the construction of such claims" (Harvey, 2005 : 232).
However, in 2009, in the midst of the insertion of the country and the city in megaevents, such as the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, a new plan was instituted. The Urban Operation Consortium, which gave rise to the Porto Maravilha project, aimed a level of intervention proportional to that of the early 20th century, promoting significant structural changes in the port area. In many ways, the plan's guidelines are similar to the model presented by Abankina (2013) when analyzing an intervention model in Great Britain, which she came to call the "evolution development model", which is based, according to the author, on the development of the potential tourist use of regional resources such as location, cultural heritage and the market itself.
In the above-mentioned case, the interest in cultural heritage increased private investments and, consequently, the financial flow. Along with real estate speculation, it consolidated the rising cost of living that forced local groups to leave. Harvey (2005), in turn, draws attention to the growth of urban entrepreneurship in recent decades, which guides the creation of investment standards in multiple aspects of urban life, such as transport, sanitation, quality of life, among others. In this sense, the author points to urban governance, arguing that
[... ] the pattern of conduct in urban governance that combines state powers (local, metropolitan, regional, national or supranational), various
organizational forms of civil society (chamber of commerce, trade unions, churches, educational and research institutions, groups communities, NGOs, etc.) and private interests (business and individual), forming coalitions to foster or manage urban/regional development of one kind or another." (Harvey, 2005: 230).
Thus, in the project execution efforts, the State Government, the municipality, the business community, through the established public-private partnership, and non-governmental institutions organized themselves to manage some cultural facilities. Malta (2017) cites the intense city marketing around cultural practices evoked in a series of city promotions in the period, such as: Rio Sustainable Capital; Rio Capital of Tourism; Rio Capital of the Creative Industry; Rio Green Capital.
From the author's perspective on the transformation and patrimonialization of the urban landscape of Rio de Janeiro, the idea would be to create "[...] a model of landscape sustainability as a reference for the political and cultural-sports agenda of the city that became the host of the Olympic Games of 2016." (Malta, 2017 : 95). Thus, the intervention would be seeking to establish a contrast between what had become the image of the "Wonderful City" in the 1920s, of an unequal and violent metropolis in an Olympic City, with modern, sustainable, heritage characteristics and revalued in the cultural and economic scope.
According to Paes-Luchiari (2006), the relationship among tourism, cultural heritage and environmental quality are, in the present, the main means for giving new meanings to the urban landscape. In technical terms, the objectives of the Porto Maravilha project involved the recovery of urban infrastructure, transport, the environment and the region's historical, artistic and cultural heritage in order to generate a population density of 100,000 inhabitants by the year 2020 (Turazzi, 2016), a fact that did not occur. In addition, it was based on obtaining resources by the municipality through the issuance of Additional
Constructive Potential Certificates [Certificados de Potencial Adicional Construtivo (Ce-pacs)], a licensing modality for the construction of properties well above the standard allowed until then, which would finance investments in the region (Turazzi, 2016 : 154).
Furthermore, relating it to projects in port and central areas around the world, as pointed out by Gravari-Barbas (2017), Paes-Luchiari (2006) and Guimaraes (2014), one of the objectives of the intervention was, in addition to the preservation and restoration, the construction of new cultural facilities, linked to one of the arms of the project, the "Porto Maravilha Cultural" (Cultural Wonderful Port). Thus, the Museum of Tomorrow was inaugurated, referred to as "the cultural anchor of the project" with architecture by Santiago Calatrava, the Rio Art Museum, in addition to places such as AquaRio, and, more recently, RioStar, all of which are connected to from the territory called "Olympic Boulevard". Regarding the relationship between renowned museums and architects in projects along these lines, Gravavari-Barbas argues that
Among the different types of constructions, museums are certainly those that have been the object of extraordinary architectural initiatives, and at the same time they have been attributed the value of being the type of tourist facility that "propels" any emerging urban destination (Gravari-Barbas, 2017:107) Thus, culture and museums become a capital for projects anchored in urban recovery or renovation. Such projects make it possible to cover up social inequality, given the emphasis placed on valuing these spaces, which, according to Meneses (2003 : 259), causes the inhabitant to be "marginalized and replaced by the tourist". In this sense, the restructured territory becomes visible in cities that, according to Paes-Luchiari (2006 : 54), were able to accumulate "cultural capital", establishing local landmarks of distinction (Harvey, 2005).
From this perspective, Harvey (2005) draws attention to the silenced aspects of the
process, such as resistance and disputes over space and over the narratives to be established, as, in his case, observed in Barcelona. In the Port Zone of Rio de Janeiro, what was imposed on the territory was the memory of the erasure of the African occupation in the Region, because even having landed almost a million enslaved by the Port that is now called Archaeological Site of Cais do Valongo, only in the context of the works carried out under the Porto Maravilha project, unofficial voices conquer the right to speak, witnessing the expulsion of black bodies, social abandonment, silencing and the absence of the right to memory.
Pequena Africa (Little Africa), as it has been called in the present by the most diverse articulators of its narratives, has unexpectedly coexisting along with the official narrative. To it is added an entire territory that includes the neighborhoods of the port area, in a complex involving tangible and intangible assets that recall the trajectory and life of the Africans who disembarked there, a fact that, itself, moves the officially established social structures, and the very notion of Brazilian culture, heritage and ancestry.
Underground Memories and Narratives of Resistance
The Porto Maravilha project was a public policy of great magnitude, which affected an area of approximately 5 million m2, integrated into the "Area of Special Urban Interest", which involves the port districts and the city center. Thus, one of the first steps to be carried out were urban infrastructure works, which involved underground interventions, completed in July 2012 (Lima, Sene & Souza, 2016). On that occasion, a group of archaeologists was recommended by the Institute of National Historic and Artistic Heritage, to monitor the works at the Jornal do Comercio Square, in case traces of the old Cais do Valongo and Cais da Imperatriz were located. Considering the relevance of the sites, the researchers created an academic project to find them, focusing on the first one (Lima et al., 2016) for its silencing.
Source: https://www.skyscrapercity.com/threads/porto-maravilha-revitalizaçâo-da-zona-portuàna-do-rio.751306/page-2814
Thus, after the works were finished, the researchers made an articulation with the organized civil society, approaching the symbolic potential of the Site for the discussions involving the African diaspora. In this sense, the black movement, in the figure of the Municipal Council for the Defense of the Rights of the Black People, and the State Council for the Rights of the Black and Promotion of Racial Equality, sought the responsible bodies to articulate measures to safeguard the site.
From this moment on, some developments stand out. Still in 2011, the Carta do Valongo (Valongo Letter) was written and, by a Municipal Decree No. 34,803, was created a Curatorial Working Group for the Urban, Architectural and Museological Project and the Historical and Archaeological Circuit of Celebration of African Heritage (Rios, 2020). The latter was developed by the mentioned Working Group in the perspective that each part of the circuit would refer to a dimension of the life of Africans and their descendants, being divided into three broad categories: archaeological sites, historical sites and living sites.
Thus, six places were inventoried as part
of the territory of Pequeña África linked to the African diaspora, namely: New Black Cemetery (New Black Institute)4, Cais do Valongo and Cais da Imperatriz, Valongo Gardens, Largo do Depósito [Depot Square], Salt Rock and the José Bonifácio Cultural Center, where on November 23, 2021, the Museum of Afro-Brazilian History and Culture, the MUHCAB, was inaugurated. Later, the Pequena África Cultural Center, Afoxé Filhos de Gandhi, and the former D. Pedro II Docks were included, the latter with the intention of becoming a "referential space for African heritage", in which a Memorial should be created (Rios, 2020).
Also in 2012, it was recommended by the Minister of Culture Ana de Hollanda and the Minister of Racial Equality Luiza Bairros, the registration of the archaeological site of Cais do Valongo as a World Heritage Site. In the opportunity granted in 2013, during the statutory meeting of the International Scientific Council of the Slave Route Project of UNESCO in Rio de Janeiro, a plaque was placed at the site, stating that it is an archaeological site recognized by UNESCO and a place of memory
4 In the original, in Portuguese, "Cemitério dos Pretos Novos (Instituto Pretos Novos)".
of the Slave Route, the first of its kind in the world5. Supported unanimously at the International Scientific Committee meeting in 2014 in Mexico City, a scientific committee was created to prepare its candidacy, formalized by the Brazilian government to UNESCO in September 2015. The Cais do Valongo, in turn, received the title of World Heritage and sensitive memory site by UNESCO in 2017 (Rios, 2020).
It should be noted that the process did not proceed in a linear fashion. There was, and still have been complications that make this territory a place full of possibilities for reflection. Regarding the objectives of this work, it is important to highlight that the finding, or even the maintenance of the place as an archaeological site that has sensitive symbolic aspects, was not one of the initial objectives of the intervention project (Lima et al., 2016). Keeping the place as "it was" is consistent with a political strategy of negotiation with civil society, so that, from its emergence, the territory was discursively integrated into the developments of Porto Maravilha. According to the approach on territorialities, Paes-Lu-chiari (2006) states that
Based on the assumptions that support the approach to territory, we can say that it is established by a political framework, permeated by power strategies; it is delimited by material or symbolic boundaries; it is the object of planning or social regulation, and has degrees of institutionality, aiming at institutional cohesion. "Territoriality, in turn - as stated by Correa (1994:241) -refers to the set of practices and their material and symbolic expressions capable of guaranteeing the appropriation and permanence of a given territory by a given social agent, the State, different social groups and companies". (Paes-Luchiari, 2006: 50).
In this sense, the organization around the territory that was established as Pequena
África was compromised over time as a result of changes in the political-ideological environment, shaped by the strengthening of reactionary currents of thought, in the municipal and federal spheres. In such a social context, the institutions responsible for safeguarding, not only the Cais do Valongo Archaeological Site, but other assets related to the African diaspora in the region, were weakened and curtailed.
An example of this weakening lies in the project to create the Museum of African History and Culture, which at first was under the responsibility of the Federal Government and was later transferred to the municipality. The change of responsibility for the project led to a distancing from the agreement signed with UNESCO. Still related to the example of the Museum of African History and Culture, the place designated to house the collection inherent to African history and culture, the building of the old Docks of D. Pedro II, is also the target of disputes in the judicial sphere, because despite the building's finally desocu-pation by the NGO Citizenship Action, it is still uncertain when or whether if the place will hold a Memorial for Cais do Valongo.
The absence of effective management, added to the emptying of investments in culture, cultivated an institutional silencing of the territory, an aspect potentiated by the Sars-Cov2 pandemic, which prevented the displacement of people around the world. In his survey on papers involving cultural tourism, Richards (2018) exposes the thoughts of authors who question whether the World Heritage list makes sense, and whether in fact the presence of these places generates more flows of people. Some of the works question the fact that the condition of "Outstanding Universal Value", and attributes such as authenticity and integrity are difficult to define and, according to the cultural organization of society, are subject to different interpretations (Richards, 2018).
Thus, what we have as hypothesis is an
5 During fieldwork conducted in Pequena Africa on November 20, 2021, it was found that the plaque had been removed. Records on virtual platforms point to the absence of the plaque after October 17, 2021.
absence of a look by those who are in charge of the institutions at present, that these places have the value given to them both by UNESCO and by the groups that feel represented by such assets. However, with the change in municipal management in 2021, and the articulation of the Federal Public Ministry to seek answers from the institutions, some movements have been observed in the region. In May 2021, for example, an accountability presentation was made at a Public Hearing in which the Executive Project for the Memorial and Visitation Center of the building of the old Docks of D. Pedro II was presented. In September of the same year, it was vacated to receive the Urban Archeology Laboratory of Rio de Janeiro, which will share the site with Palmares Foundation. Recently the Managing Committee of Cais do Valongo, which had been extinguished by presidential decree in early 2021, was reinstated, and the Federal Senate approved the titling of Cais do Valongo as an Afro-Brazilian cultural-historical heritage site.
However, the most significant actions have taken place at the municipal level. In November 2021, "Black November" was created, an initiative that promoted throughout the month a series of activities related to Afro-Brazilian culture in the city6. In regards to Pequeña África, the MUHCAB (Museum of African History and Culture) was reopened, with a collection containing works by black artists, and taken as the starting point of the territory museum, which is under development by the public-private partnership signed with companies still in 2017. Furthermore, symbolic actions linked to historical reparation were also carried out, such as the naming of streets after historical black figures like Tia Ciata, Milton Santos, Dodo da Portela, and the painter
Tia Lucia.
At the closing, on November 30th, the Catalogue for the Promotion of Racial Equality was launched, with the objective of "[...] mapping institutions, movements, groups, collectives, and directors in Rio de Janeiro that work with racial issues", the Actions to Combat Racism Edict, and the Valongo Circle, the latter with the intention of establishing an educational network with the wharf as its center and three circles: consultant, executive, and protector7.
On this same occasion the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes made a speech stating that, in his past administration, the "revi-talization process" had been much criticized, because the project had an elitist character, which would corroborate to "whiten the port area" and gentrify the region, a fact that he claimed to have happened exactly the opposite way, affirming that:
And I am very happy that we can be here in 2021, eleven years after we started this process of revitalization of the port area, in fact twelve years, we have already started in the first month of our mandate this effort, this work. Putting this revitalization with the origins of our city on the city's agenda. It is very good to see that we have accomplished the mission. For some people, fulfilling the mission is just filling buildings, it's just the physical thing, for us it was never just that. Of course, we want a lot of buildings, of course we want a lot of people living here, of course we want a lot of jobs, of course we want a lot of things [...]. But it had a very important agenda from the beginning, which was this encounter of the city with its origin, with its history.
6 Every November 20th is celebrated in Brazil the Day of Black Consciousness.
7 The advisory circle is deliberative, determining the guidelines for policies and actions related to Cais do Valongo and Pequeña África, and is composed of councils from the Executive Branch and civil society entities linked to the Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian movements. The executive circle has the objective of promoting and implementing the deliberations, and is composed of entities of the executive power from the three spheres of public power. The protection circle, on its turn, will act in the defense of the interests and guidelines established, and in the inspection of the actions of the other executive power bodies. The group is formed by international entities, the Federal Public Ministry, and the Executive Coordination for the Promotion of Racial Equality.
And it is part, of course, of the formation of our city, of our country, part of the black people who arrived here in this region, in Pequena Africa [Little Africa], who settled here and all these injustices that we live with started here. This discourse recall to the arguments of Paes-Luchiari (2006) and Harvey (2005). The first author cites the so-called "social production of space" as the way in which historic centers, as well as port areas, have their dynamics in the present as a reflection of the historical and cultural social relations they have witnessed. Harvey (2005 : 232), in the aforementioned work, highlights how heritage and cultural elements become "powerful constitutive elements of urban entrepreneurship policy", highlighting the competition between cities for the accumulation of "marks of distinction and symbolic capital" continuously.
In this sense, the Mayor Eduardo Paes recalled the beginning of the Porto Maravilha project, emphasizing the "meeting of the city with its origin, with its history." points to the fact that the implemented revitalization process, despite the elitization of space configured in the increase in real estate prices and areas of the region, corresponds to a narrative that expresses the "formation of our city, of our country, part of the black people, black people who arrived here in this region, in Pe-quena África, who settled and all these injustices that we experience started here...".
From the above, in agreement with Paes-Luchiari (2006) and Harvey (2005), it appears that in the case of Pequena África, the recognition of goods as heritage was narratively framed under the valorization of the memory of a past that distinguishes a specific social group and therefore, the symbolic capital and valuation for a region through its culture is not only manifested by cultural facilities, as they are linked to a need for resonance with the contexts that shelter them.
Tourism Through a Decade of Implementation of the Porto Maravilha Project Up to this point, we have described the context that configured the Port Zone and the articulations that conformed the territories
that were called Olympic Boulevard and Pe-quena África. Thus, the trajectory presented here draws attention to the phenomenon that, according to Harvey (2005), has the potential to highlight the operation of this dynamic: tourism. Although the author does not tie his argument to tourist activity, he points to it as a possibility for reflection.
Since its conception, the Porto Maravilha project sought to bring new flows to the port area. The new cultural equipment, transportation, and urban infrastructure had a great ally to multiply its existence, namely the Summer Olympic Games. In 2016, the Mauá Square received stages and large screens for visitors to follow the competitions, and warehouses 1 to 6 hosted varied thematic events, in addition to the Olympic torch being placed just over 1km away on the newly opened Orla Conde.
Thus, after the end of the said mega event, the flows remained in the region, and in Pequena África emerged what the tourism market has been calling "Afrocentric" tourism, or, according to Pinho (2018), diasporic tourism. The author maps out some concepts stating that this modality would be "[...] a type of tourism primarily produced, consumed, and experienced by diasporic communities." (Pinho, 2018 : 117). Her ethnographic work in Salvador identified a displacement of African-American travelers driven by the encounter with the ways of life of their "peers". In this sense, the author points out that,
The collective memory of the horrors experienced by ancestors - as in the paradigmatic cases of the Holocaust and the enslavement of Africans and African descendants - constitutes a primordial element of diasporic tourism. In some cases, national governments strategically construct and mobilize these memories of pain to promote di-asporic tourism aimed at establishing allies in the central countries. The collective memory of pain experienced by ancestors can contribute to diasporic tourism gaining the contour of the so-called (dark tourism), the type of
tourism characterized by the centrality of the experience of death, collective suffering, and terror. (Pinho, 2018: 126).
Pinho (2018) clarifies that while approaching what the market would call "ethnic tourism", these flows are characterized by the consumption of the experience of what was lost by the forced migration of Africans to the Americas, an aspect confirmed in Pequena África, where reports8 from guides in the region demonstrate the displacement of African Americans to the Region for this purpose. This flow of visitation raises the point of Richards (2018) when discussing "cultural tourist". For the author, this tourist is supposed to gather some conditions to be able to "consume" certain places, such as cultural capital built from a subjective recognition of his identity and the contexts by which it is formed.
Richards (2009) pointed out based on his research that most visitors to these spaces are local, a fact that leads him to point out that "[...] the domestic market is of vital importance to most cultural attractions." (Richards, 2009 : 26). Data collected during field research for the doctoral thesis of the first author of this paper, corroborates Richards' (2009) statement, because it was identified a flow of visitors consisting of students of various levels who visit the space in groups for educational purposes and entertainment organized by private companies.
Thus, besides the tours promoted by private companies, institutions such as the New Black Institute (NBI) maintain a direct relationship with the educational environment, promoting and directing efforts to attract schools to participate in an immersion in the region. More recently, for example, they launched a free booklet in partnership with the Education Commission of the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro, called "Pequena África: an open-air classroom", aimed at educators in private and public schools.
What can be noted is that this and other
initiatives are fundamental for the maintenance of a memory about the Region, contributing to the re-signification of values and the safeguarding of heritage. Tourism, thus perceived, is inserted in a citizen perspective that goes beyond the economic aspect of the activity, because it carries, itself, the potential to communicate narratives that are different from the hegemonic ones, it gives voice to the silenced and the right to memory, giving visitors and tourists the possibility of values.
Final Considerations
Throughout this reflection, we seek to present the developments of the tourist activity after ten years of implementation of the Porto Maravilha project. Taking as reference authors who discussed the social production of space and urban business policies, we signal that the dynamics of such processes is linked to the search for distinction where symbolic capitals are anchored in values that are permanently under negotiation. In the case of Pequena África, the negotiation based on what Assmann (2008) calls the desire for the future, manifested in keeping part of the past active in the memory, hence the fact that the territory and the heritage housed there are the object of intense disputes.
In this public arena, we consider that tourism assumes a social function that equals a sociopolitical instrument that, associated with urban entrepreneurial policies, provides the possibility of deconstructing hegemonic narratives, stimulating representativeness, making subaltern and/or erased memories visible, promoting historically excluded groups, and promoting educational processes in non-formal spaces. The initiatives that comprise diasporic tourism and the pedagogically-based ones described above, when analyzed in dialogue with the uses of heritage and territory, allow us to think of tourism as Richards (2018) argues, that is, supported by partnerships that are based on culture and less on the economic exploitation of these spaces.
8 Reports collected during fieldwork in January and February 2020.
References
Abankina, T. (2013). Regional development models using cultural heritage resources. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 7(1), 3-10.
Assman, A. (2008). Canon and archive. In: Erll, A. & Nunning, A. Cultural memory studies. Berlin, Deut.: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
Benchimol, J. L. (1992). Pereira Passos um Haussmann tropical: a renovaçao urbana da cidade do Rio de Janeiro no inicio do século XX. Rio de Janeiro. Secretaria Municipal de Cultura, Turismo e Esportes, Departamento Geral de Documentaçao e Informaçao Cultural, Divisao de Editoraçao.
Gravari-Barbas, M. (2017). Arquitectura, museos, turismo: la guerra de las marcas. Revista de Arquitectura, 20(1), 102-114.
Guimaraes, R. S. (2014). A Utopia da Pequena África: projetos urbanísticos, patrimônios e conflitos na Zona Portuária carioca. Rio de Janeiro. FGV.
Harvey, D. (2005). A Produçao Capitalista do Espaço. Sao Paulo. Annabllume.
Lenzi, M. I, & Santos, N. M. (Orgs.). (2005). O porto e a cidade: o Rio de Janeiro entre 1565 e 1910. Rio de Janeiro. Casa da Palavra.
Lima, T. A., Sene, G. M., & De Souza, M. A. (2016). Em busca do Cais do Valongo, Rio de Janeiro, século XIX. Anais do Museu Paulista, 24(1). 299-391.
Meneses, U. (2003). Museu, cultura material e cidade: o museu de cidade e a consciência da cidade. In: Santos, A. C., Kessel, C. & Guimaraes, C. (Org.). Museus & Cidades. Rio de Janeiro: Museu Histórico Nacional, 255-282.
Malta, E. (2017). Consumindo Paisagens: Patrimônio Cultural, Turismo e Enobrecimento Urbano no Rio de Janeiro. Tomo, 31.
Paes-Luchiari, M. T. (2006) Centros históricos: mercantilizaçao e territorialidades do patrimônio cultural urbano. Geographia, 7(14).
Pinho, P. (2018) Turismo diaspóricos: mapeando conceitos e questoes. Tempo Social, Revista de Sociologia da USP, 30(2), 113-131.
Richards, G. (2018). Cultural tourism: a review of recent research and trends. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 36, 12-21.
Richards, G. (2009). Turismo cultural: padroes e implicaçoes. In: Camargo, P. & Cruz, G. Turismo cultural: estratégias, sustentabilidade e tendências. UESC: Bahia, 25-48.
Rios, D. A. (2020). As antigas Docas de D. Pedro II: trajetória, rememoraçao, patrimonializaçao e desdobramentos. 205 p. Dissertaçao (Mestrado em Memória Social). Centro de Ciências Humanas e Sociais. Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
Salomao, F. V. & De Castro, C. V. (2018). A identidade quilombola: territorialidade étnica e proteçao jurídica. Cadernos do Programa de Pôs-Graduaçao em Direito PPGDir. /UFRGS. Ediçao digital. Porto Alegre, XIII(1), 236-255.
Turazzi, M. I. (2016). Rio, um porto entre tempos: modos de ser, modos de conhecer. Rio de Janeiro. Bazar do Tempo.
Vassallo, S. & Cicalo, A. (2015). Por onde os africanos chegaram: o Cais do Valongo e a institu-cionalizaçao da memória do tráfico negreiro na regiao portuária do Rio de Janeiro. Horizontes Antropológicos, Porto Alegre, 21(43), 239-271.
Vellso, M. (1988). As tradiçoes populares na Belle Époque carioca. Rio de Janeiro. Funarte. 1988.
