The imagination of urban informality and workers in Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte: an analysis of favelas censuses (1948-1965)

ABSTRACT The article analyzes the censuses of favelas in Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, observing the circulation of social categories and technical of government in the understanding of urban informality in Brazilian industrialization. Prioritizes the understanding of statistics formed in the census system of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) between 1948 and 1966. The statistical categories to represent the favelas in numbers were inscribed in power relations, and through favelas censuses political debates took place on the “desfavelamento” of cities and on the image of the “favela worker”. Through statistics, the imagination of the Rio favela was nationalized as an “urban problem” and “housing problem” in Brazilian urban-industrial development.