Latin American Borderlands: Exploring the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro is the second largest city in Brazil and holds a great amount of the country\u27s new-found wealth gained from the many offshore oil and gas fields that have been discovered over the last fifteen years. It has also been a major point of international discussion in recent months as the world anticipates the 2012 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, both to be held in Rio de Janeiro. However, in the midst of such excitement and economic growth, this city is also home to hundreds of illegal tenement settlements known as favelas. Many of the Brazilians who live in these miserable conditions experience daily confrontations with crime and violence, with little to no intervention by authorities