The definitions of slums and favelas and its implication on population data: a content analysis approach

AbstractThis article aimed to discuss the different definitions of slums and favelas and their implication on population data. The definitions discussed were extracted from research related to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). The data manipulation was performed according to the content analysis (CA) approach. The quantification performed with Iramuteq software was based on word frequency and factorial correspondence analysis (FCA). Qualitative and quantitative analyzes highlighted two major differences: in the object characterization (area, building and both); and qualification type (legal aspects, construction standards, infrastructure deficiency, land property, population density, geographic references and residents typing). With the high number of qualifications and diverse content, the population data aggregate different information, making its comparison less accurate. This imprecision tends to expand due to the area growth and the number of countries analyzed.