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This paper interrogates the extent to which imaginaries of climate and ecological breakdown attend to the memories, knowledges, and experiences of communities already impacted by histories of racism, colonialism, and poverty. Drawing on insights from Black studies and decolonial thinking, the article reflects on how the causes and effects of anthropogenic climate change can be mapped onto geographies of racialised violence and social dispossession. Specific emphasis is given to Rio de Janeiro, notably its port area, a geographical space where future-oriented narratives remain oblivious to the city's history of anti-Black violence and Indigenous genocide. In parallel, the paper looks at the recently built Museum of Tomorrow and its public representations of the Anthropocene. Overall, the article contends that pluralising accounts of the Anthropocene might offer alternative epistemic entry points for understanding and interrupting the mounting ecological catastrophe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the majority of Brazilian public schools, poverty and social injustice prevail. Most students come from disadvantaged realities, and their future seems to be already defined by a lack of social mobility, exclusion from civil rights, and violence—a situation that has worsened with the global pandemic. Rooted in ethnographic research in public schools in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, this paper explores the role of pedagogies of care in creating alternative, possible, and preferable narratives about the future of these students. By using the metaphor of "school as soil", the study identifies care in four dimensions: time, heterogeneity, mattering, and fertility. It draws on 12 semi-structured interviews with teachers from eight different public schools that were part of a larger doctoral project. By researching school as soil, we examine how pedagogies of care encourage teachers' speculation about preferable imaginaries for the future of their students. Results show that despite precarious resources and scarce institutional support, pedagogies of care appear in multiple reported situations, aiming to inspire learning processes, give voice and agency to the socially marginalized, and allow for ways of thinking that offer alternatives to the seemingly ubiquitous oppressive relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When, in 1822, Brazil declared its independence from Portugal, its vast territory was little known by the central government in Rio de Janeiro. There was a great need to create reliable maps that would delineate the new country's boundaries. This paper aims to show how a practical application of astronomy, specifically geodesy, was vital in the efforts to build the nation. We follow the professional life of an astronomer, Luis Cruls, director of the National Observatory, professor at the Military School and chief researcher of several expeditions, to discuss the strength of geodesic and cartographic activities in Brazil at the end of the 19th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we scrutinize the concept of 'urban informality' in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. By unpacking key moments in Rio's history when conceptualizations of informal housing (i.e., favelas) changed, we explain why favelas have been understood in different ways over the last century. Our argument is that the concept of informality, while signaling an important shift in how favelas were understood, also perpetuated orientalist epistemologies in theories of urban development. This helps to explain why the term gained traction when it did, as well as why it remains salient today. In Rio, this means that changing understandings of favelas over the last century reveal little about actual changes within favelas, and more about how different geographic imaginaries were projected onto them, reflecting specific 'problems' confronting the city at different moments in history. This is important for seeing how conceptualizations of favelas – including the ways we understand urban informality – tend to mirror a host of latent social and political anxieties connected to urban development, including attempts to govern and control informal space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dengue, Zika, and chikungunya are arboviral diseases (AVD) transmitted mainly by Aedes aegypti. Rio de Janeiro city, Brazil, has been endemic for dengue for over 30 years, and experienced the first joint epidemic of the three diseases between 2015-2016. They present similar symptoms and only a small proportion of cases are laboratory-confirmed. These facts lead to potential misdiagnosis and, consequently, uncertainty in the registration of the cases. We have available the number of cases of each disease for the n = 160 neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro. We propose a Poisson model for the total number of cases of Aedes -borne diseases and, conditioned on the total, we assume a multinomial model for the allocation of the number of cases of each of the diseases across the neighborhoods. This provides simultaneously the estimation of the associations of the relative risk of the total cases of AVD with environmental and socioeconomic variables; and the estimation of the probability of presence of each disease as a function of available covariates. Our findings suggest that a one standard deviation increase in the social development index decreases the relative risk of the total cases of AVD by 28%. Neighborhoods with smaller proportion of green area had greater odds of having chikungunya in comparison to dengue and Zika. A one standard deviation increase in population density decreases the odds of a neighborhood having Zika instead of dengue by 18% but increases the odds of chikungunya in comparison to dengue by 18% and by 43% in comparison to Zika. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the effect of Brazil's national tourism brand on the image of Rio de Janeiro as the host city of the 2016 Olympic Games, and the reciprocal effect of Rio de Janeiro on Brazil, considering both as tourist destinations. A quantitative study was employed using structured questionnaires, with a sample of foreign respondents (n = 340) and a simultaneous equation method. A positive reciprocal effect was found. In general, the perception of a country as a tourist destination influences destinations within that country. However, the Brazil destination brand image did not influence Rio. This situation was proved to be an exception to the rule, the sports mega-event context probably contributing to the result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social housing sector is playing an important role in Brazil, due to the necessity of its expansion. Currently, many residential projects perform poorly in terms of energy efficiency and thermal comfort. In addition, the impact of climate change on energy consumption may aggravate the energy scenario, increasing the dependence on the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. In parallel to this, there is a growing adoption of the Structural Concrete Insulated Panels (SCIP) and insulated concrete form (ICF) in the Brazilian construction industry, due to their advantages in reducing construction time, and cost. Therefore, this study provides a discussion on thermal-energy performance focusing on parametric analysis of the SCIP and ICF wall systems adoption for social housing in Brazil. Due to the fact that building performance is heavily affected by weather conditions, this study evaluated the computer simulation of the thermal-energy performance of SCIP and ICF wall systems for hot climates while addressing the impacts of climate change. The city of Rio de Janeiro, characterized by the tropical climate was selected, and the Climate Change World Weather File Generator (CCWorldWeatherGen) tool was used to produce weather data for future climate scenarios, such as 2020, 2050 and 2080. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how class, consumerism, and employment influence beliefs of an idealized digital world in marginalized communities. I recount 24 months of ethnographic and institutional observation in a non-governmental organization that promoted the concept of " utopia digital " (digital utopia in Portuguese) in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns). This corporate-funded non-governmental organization employed members of Brazil's traditional middle class and promoted the liberating potentials of digital inclusion to members of a "New Middle Class" made up of 35 million "previously poor" Brazilians. Interviews with middle-class employees reveal how ideas of digital utopia act as a code for corporate efforts to encourage consumerism among the New Middle Class and bolster employment opportunities for members of Brazil's traditional middle class. Reflecting on informal conversations, I also highlight a middle-class "crime talk" that frames the favela as an inherently violent place and, in contrast to their inclusionary work related to digital utopia, encourages non-governmental organization workers to physically avoid favela space. I use Zygmunt Bauman's discussion of an "active" or "hunter" utopia as an ethnographic lens to discuss the practical and everyday experiences of technological inclusion in classed settings. By describing digital utopias as actively shaped by everyday understandings of urban exclusion and privilege, this article provides an ethnographic framework for decoding the socially reproductive nature of class-inflected consumer interventions in marginalized communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]