The Favela as a Lifeworld
It took time before I understood that the favela was not merely a place.
At first, I mainly saw the poverty.
The narrow streets.
The fragile houses.
The heat.
The dust.
The violence lying beneath everyday life like a constant unease.
All of this was real.
But gradually something else began to emerge.
I began to understand that the favela was also a lifeworld.
Not merely a geographical area.
But a way of living, experiencing, hoping, fearing, and understanding the world.
Perhaps this is something modern societies often overlook when speaking about poverty. We describe people through statistics, economics, and social indicators. These things matter. Yet such descriptions say little about how the world is actually experienced from within.
What does the morning smell like in a favela?
What do the evenings sound like?
What is it like to grow up in streets where violence and play exist side by side?
How is community experienced when people live closely together?
What happens to a person’s understanding of self when society constantly reminds them of their place at the bottom of social hierarchies?
These questions could never be answered through numbers alone.
They had to be lived close to.
I still remember the early mornings when we entered the neighbourhood together with the medical students from CEPAS. The sun rose quickly above the rooftops. Dogs moved through the streets. Women swept outside their homes. Children were already outside. From small kitchens came the smell of coffee and food.
Life began early.
In some places one could hear radios playing music or news. In other places an unusual silence rested over the streets after the unrest of the night.
But everywhere:
human beings.
People living their lives.
It is easy to think of the favela as a place defined by lack. And yes, the lack was real:
lack of money,
lack of safety,
lack of stable institutions,
lack of future opportunities for many young people.
Yet gradually I discovered that human life never consists only of lack.
Here too there existed love.
Humour.
Religion.
Neighbourhood.
Music.
Jealousy.
Pride.
Care.
Longing.
In other words:
the entirety of human life.
Perhaps this was precisely what affected me so deeply.
For the favela did not fit into the simple categories I had brought with me from Europe.
It was both harsh and warm.
Both violent and caring.
Both marked by fear and by vitality.
Everything existed simultaneously.
I believe this challenged my own need to understand the world through orderly concepts.
For life in the favela was not orderly.
It flowed.
Changed.
Shifted mood from street to street.
From day to night.
In some places laughter filled a small square where children played football. In other places one could sense unease in people’s eyes long before anyone spoke a word.
It was as though the neighbourhood itself possessed different moods.
Martin Heidegger writes that human beings are always already situated within a world. We do not first exist as isolated individuals who later encounter our surroundings. We are shaped by the world we grow into:
the language,
the moods,
the relationships,
the fears,
the hopes,
the sounds,
the habits.
I began to understand something of this in Brazil.
The favela was not merely a place where people lived.
It also lived inside the people themselves.
In their bodies.
In the way they moved.
In the way they listened.
In the way they assessed danger.
In the way they shared food and care.
Children learned early which streets were safe to walk through.
When one should withdraw.
Whom one should avoid.
How to read atmospheres.
This is how a lifeworld is formed.
Not first through theory.
But through lived experience.
I often think about how modern societies underestimate the significance of such experiences. We speak as though people only need education and economic resources in order to change their lives. Yet human worlds reach far deeper than that.
They exist in habits.
In the body.
In memories.
In the feeling of what is possible.
Perhaps this is why social change is always more difficult than politicians imagine.
For human beings do not merely live within society.
Society also lives within human beings.
At the same time, it would be wrong to describe the favela merely as a form of imprisonment.
This is important.
For in the midst of poverty and unrest, I also experienced a human closeness that modern Western societies sometimes seem to lose.
People lived close to one another.
Doors stood open.
Neighbours knew about each other’s lives.
Children moved between homes.
People shared food and help whenever someone needed it.
At times this could feel intrusive.
At other times deeply beautiful.
I still remember the elderly woman who gave us mangoes before we left her home. She possessed almost nothing. Yet she gave.
It was as though generosity still remained a natural part of her lifeworld.
Perhaps this is something poorer societies sometimes preserve better than wealthy ones:
the experience of mutual dependence.
In modern individualistic societies, people are taught early to manage on their own. Independence becomes an ideal. But in the favela it was obvious that people survived through relationships.
No one managed alone for very long.
This also shaped our research.
We could not simply ask questions about isolated individuals detached from their surroundings. Their lives were intertwined with families, neighbours, violence, religion, work, and local community.
Everything affected everything else.
Perhaps this was precisely why CEPAS mattered so much.
The centre did not merely attempt to treat illness.
It attempted to remain present within a lifeworld.
This is an important difference.
Modern institutions sometimes risk meeting people as problems detached from the context in which they live. But in the favela it became clear that human suffering is always woven into a larger world of relationships and experiences.
I believe the medical students gradually began to understand this.
Some of them became quieter after the home visits.
Not because they possessed less knowledge.
But perhaps because the knowledge acquired weight.
Reality came close.
It is difficult to think abstractly about poverty after sitting inside a small house drinking coffee with a family sharing the little they possess.
It is difficult to reduce violence to statistics after meeting young boys carrying fear and revenge inside their bodies.
It is difficult to understand people merely as patients when one also sees their pride, love, and humour.
Perhaps this is something practical philosophy tries to remind us of:
that human life is always greater than the categories through which we attempt to describe it.
Human beings live within worlds of meaning.
In the favela this became visible in a particularly powerful way.
Religion was part of everyday life.
Music was part of everyday life.
Violence was part of everyday life.
Care was part of everyday life.
Everything existed side by side.
And in the midst of this, people attempted to preserve something fundamental:
dignity.
Not as an abstract ideal.
But as practice.
In the way one dresses.
In the way one keeps a home clean even when everything around is poor.
In the way one welcomes guests.
In the way one shares food.
In the way one protects one’s children.
Perhaps this is what I remember most strongly from Brazil.
Not only the poverty.
Not only the violence.
But the people who continued to live their lives with a form of quiet dignity in the midst of it all.
Sometimes I think back to the warm evenings in the favela.
To the music rising between the houses.
To children still playing football before darkness settled completely.
To women sitting outside their homes speaking together.
To the smell of food.
To the dogs beginning to bark in the distance.
To the unease one could sometimes feel without anyone speaking a word.
And I think about how all this gradually changed my own way of seeing.
For eventually the favela ceased to be merely “the area of the poor.”
It became a world.
A human lifeworld.
Filled with pain.
Filled with beauty.
Filled with fear.
Filled with hope.
Like all human worlds.
Human life is always greater than the categories through which we attempt to describe it.
