This book was born from decades of research dedicated to the favela but started formally as a habilitation à diriger des recherches thesis, defended in 2001 by Licia do Prado Valladares at France's Université Lumière Lyon 2. When finally published in Portuguese in 2005, The Invention of the Favela quickly became part of the canon of urban sociology studies in Brazil. Written by a renowned sociologist, the book reflects very well the author's long trajectory since her first fieldwork carried out in favelas in the late 1960s in Rio de Janeiro.
In order to discuss the construction of social representations, especially in the social sciences, of favelas over the past 100 years, the author makes an important contribution to the sociology of favelas by dispelling what she identifies in the preface to the English-language translation as the three dogmas that historically have underwritten stereotypes about favelas: “The first is that...
