Biosocial borders: affective debilitation and resilience amongst women living in a violently bordered favela

Brigstocke, Julian ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2455-0504, Froes, Maira, Cabral, Cristina, Malanquini, Llidiane and Baptista, Gabriela 2023. Biosocial borders: affective debilitation and resilience amongst women living in a violently bordered favela. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 48 (3) , pp. 587-602. 10.1111/tran.12601

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Abstract

Within emerging fields of research focusing on neuro-urbanism, neuro-geographies, and biosociality, few studies have experimented with using these emerging methods to research socio-spatial life in communities that suffer high levels of violence and other socio-spatial injustices. Extending nonrepresentational accounts of the body, emotions, and affect, this paper discusses an experimental geography-neuroscience collaboration working in a favela of Rio de Janeiro to explore the embodied urban emotions and affects of violently bordered urban communities. Extending an emphasis on nonrepresentational, corporeal spatial practices to a study of women living in Brazil's favelas, we use electrodermal activity (EDA) biosensors to propose a novel methodological and analytical approach that focuses on forms of affective debilitation and resilience. Theoretically, we draw on biopolitical theory and border theory to propose a method that avoids oppositions between biopolitical and necropolitical accounts of borders.The aim of the research, conducted in June 2016, is to understand levels of affective debilitation or resilience amongst women living in the Mare Complex of favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Using a wearable biosensor, we took measures of electrodermal activity of 8 women as they undertook one of their routine, everyday journeys within the favela. We also conducted an hour-long qualitative interview with each participant. We find that for all our participants, navigating the favela's violent border spaces subjects their bodies to very high levels of affective and cognitive demand. Whilst some women responded to this with stress reactions that created acute levels of affective debilitation, others responded very strongly, showing exceptionally high levels of affective resilience. Our research highlights the affective labour required of women to co-construct urban borders, and emphasizes their agency and forms of everyday resistance in shaping the favela's affective atmospheres.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	0020-2754
Funders:	AHRC
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	1 February 2023
Date of Acceptance:	12 January 2023
Last Modified:	27 Sep 2023 17:46
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/156439

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