Sociology of Sport III Essay

LetsWinthisGameTogether-ChildrensRightsViolationsMacro-SecuritisationandtheTransformativePotentialofthe2014FIFAWorldCupinBrazil.pdf

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Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 284 – 299, 2019

‘Let’s Win this Game Together’: Children’s Rights Violations, Macro-Securitisation and the Transformative Potential of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil LORRAINE VAN BLERK, JONATHAN MENDEL, ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, AND FERNANDO L. FERNANDES University of Dundee

IRENE RIZZINI Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Sport’s transformative potential is known to support marginalised children, to deal with traumatic experiences and instil positive values; yet hosting mega sporting events (MSEs) can have negative impacts. Drawing on participatory research with favela-based children during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, this article argues that MSEs bring a macro-securitisation of urban life, which causes considerable harm. This paper also suggests that the inclusion of children’s voices in advocacy debates can challenge top-down securitisation and might allow MSEs to foster further positive social transformation. Therefore, juxtaposed with causing harm, macro-securitisations can open opportunities for children to take action and have their voices heard.

Keywords: children’s rights, mega sports events, securitisation, social transformation, urban poverty.

Producing a successful bid to host a mega sporting event (MSE) is a critical factor in urban entrepreneurialism that seeks to bring foreign investment into the country and foster advantage in the global economy (Robinson, 2002). Given the potential for con- tinued development and economic transformation that hosting mega sporting events might bring, it is not surprising to find that a number of low to middle income countries (LMIC), including Brazil, have bid for and won the rights to host large-scale sport- ing events (e.g. Commonwealth Games 2010 in Delhi, India; FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa; FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil, and the Summer Olympics 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). While this attention may create positive links between sport and social

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Let’s Win this Game Together

transformation, the sheer scale of poverty and inequality present in many new hosting countries means that the impact of MSEs on the urban poor is not fully recognised. This places pressure on governments to manage the paradox between using an MSE to boost global foreign investment and international tourism and dealing with the day-to-day poverty of many urban dwellers.

Since 9/11 there has also been increased securitisation at MSEs (Giulianotti and Klauser, 2010) with the poorest living in host cities disproportionately and negatively affected by securitisations (Baade and Matheson, 2004; van Blerk, 2011; Wladimir, 2012; Rodriguez et al., 2016). Further, new hosting cities, particularly those located in Global South, also overwhelmingly deal with poverty, inequality, deep social divisions and associated urban crime (Giulianotti and Klauser, 2010). These issues are securitised when MSEs are viewed as ‘requiring emergency [security] measures and justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political procedure’ (Buzan et al., 1997: 24). However, this article goes beyond the idea of a single securitisation to argue that, where the securitisation of these MSEs intersects with global sporting competition and economic and political concerns, it can be viewed as a macro-securitisation. The macro-securitisations associated with MSEs ‘bundle other securitisations together’ (Buzan and Waever, 2009: 257). We then see, for example, securitisations relating to ter- rorism and drug crime bundled together and addressed in the name of MSE preparation.

For Buzan and Waever (2009: 266), a ‘macro-securitisation should be studied in terms of actors, audiences, speech acts and synergy with other actors and their securiti- sations (counter-securitisations as well as co-securitisations)’. With the need to consider responses to macro-securitisation in mind, this article discusses the tensions between the competing discourses that emerge around the hosting of MSEs in a context where inequality and poverty are high and of significant concern for many inhabitants. Drawing on research exploring children’s rights and MSEs in Brazil (see Rodriguez et al., 2016), we investigate how MSEs can be used to transform the lives of young people who face discrimination and rights violations, taking the positive discourse of sport as a transfor- mative response to securitisations at the individual, community and macro levels. The article suggests that, through participatory engagement with young people, the transfor- mative potential of sport need not just be at a local individual level but can result in the empowerment of communities and change at multiple political levels. Through active engagement and the inclusion of children’s voices in advocacy debates, a challenge to macro-securitisation is possible; young people have much to contribute to the discus- sion of the role of MSEs in fostering social transformation, and to building positive transformations that disrupt processes of macro-securitisation.

Securitisation, Macro-Securitisation and MSEs

There has been considerable discussion of the securitisation associated with MSEs (see, for example, Klauser, 2009; Giulianotti and Klauser, 2010; Cornelissen, 2011; Samatas, 2011). As Cornelissen (2011: 3224) notes, ‘in the aftermath of 9/11 [ … ] sport mega events are today regarded as major security or terror risks in and of themselves’. Researchers have detailed various securitisations that often accompany MSEs, particu- larly in the Global South. For example, Giulianotti and Klauser (2010: 52) argue that, when thinking about security around MSEs, ‘event-specific risks and security strategies [ … ] centre on (a) terrorist risks, (b) spectator and political violence, and (c) poverty, social divisions, and urban crime’.

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Buzan and Waever (2009: 253) note that the Copenhagen School of Security Studies’ work on securitisation ‘has mainly focused on the middle level of world politics [ … ] Its argument has been that this middle level would be the most active both because of the facility with which collective political units can construct each other as threats, and the difficulty of finding audiences for the kinds of securitisations [ … ] that are available at the individual and system levels’. To supplement this, they introduce the concept of a macro-securitisation (Buzan and Waever, 2009: 257). This concept of macro-securitisation is useful for discussing processes that, while not part of the system level of world politics, are above the level where ‘collective political units’, which are often but not always states, are active (Buzan and Waever, 2009: 253).

This concept of macro-securitisation has been used to analyse contexts, such as the ‘war on terror’ (Storm, 2009; Howell, 2014), overlapping security claims in the Cana- dian Arctic (Watson, 2013) and the Cold War (Howell, 2014). MSEs are also a fruitful field to analyse as macro-securitisations because, while not part of the system level of world politics, they nonetheless provide significant audiences for securitisations that take place above the scale of individual states while also having substantial local-scale impacts. This gives MSEs what Cornelissen (2011: 3224) describes as ‘a glocal charac- ter’. This article will demonstrate that, as well as looking at the diverse securitisations that accompany an MSE, it can be helpful to consider how MSEs bundle different activ- ities together into a macro-securitisation.

Engaging with macro-securitisation is useful to get an ‘analytical grip’ on all that occurs above the middle tier. As discussed above, the ‘most powerful macro-securitisations, such as the Cold War, will impose a hierarchy on the lower level ones incorporated within them, but it is also possible for a macro-securitisation simply to bundle other securitisations together without necessarily outranking them’ (Buzan and Waever, 2009: 257). Our research suggests that this was the case in the context of FIFA 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Here, bundling together securitisations of issues, such as drugs and poverty around this MSE, did not impose a hierarchy on them. However, to understand how these securitisations played out around the football World Cup it is important to consider how they were bundled together into a macro-securitisation. For example, a crack down on parts of the illegal drug trade would likely have had a substantially different impact had it not been bundled with securitisations of poverty that led to displacement. It is thus important to look at how MSEs bundle together securitisations taking place at state or sub-state level, and how this has different effects from those that these securitisations alone might have, even if the macro-securitisation here does not ultimately establish any hierarchy.

Social and Political Context of MSEs

Hosting a sports event may position a country as a global player in economic terms, but it can have adverse economic effects (Wladimir, 2012). However, prior to the 2014 World Cup, FIFA had not included human rights issues as part of the bidding criteria for event hosting (recent lobbying by pressure groups means this is now under discussion at FIFA). Governments are, therefore, under pressure to manage the tension between using MSEs to boost global foreign investment and international tourism and dealing with the daily experience of poverty faced by significant numbers of their countries’ residents. Cornelis- sen (2011), drawing on the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, notes scaled management where international, national, state and city level interests are brought together in secu- ritisation processes. Labelling such events as security risks allows a macro-securitisation

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where new, pre-existing and intensifying securitisations are bundled together at differ- ent levels – providing legitimation for all these interests to establish rights and enforce bylaws in the context of ensuring the safety of the public in attendance. This can be used to justify intrusion in the daily lives of citizens and the violation of their human rights. Such actions might include the removal of street-connected children from host cities – as was identified during the FIFA World Cup in South Africa (Cornelissen, 2011; van Blerk, 2011).

Challenging the argument that sport negatively impacts on the poorest in societies, other literature views sport as positively supporting social transformation at a local level (Armstrong, 2004; Spaaij and Schulenkorf, 2014). There are many initiatives that seek social transformation through sport, such as Sport for Peace, and NGOs often use sport as a mechanism for transforming communities and rehabilitating young people by devel- oping cooperation, respect and promoting good health (Fuller et al., 2010). Fuller et al. (2010), for example, discuss the benefits of using football for health promotion in South Africa. Similarly, Armstrong (2004) outlines the process of incorporating football into the rehabilitation of young people who ended up on the streets during the Liberian civil war. In these examples, sport acted as a meeting point between social workers and young people, creating a space for building trust and constructing positive lives. It is worth noting, however, that even these social transformation projects are faced with tensions around pleasing donors and effecting real change.

Social Context of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil

The 2014 World Cup took place not just against a backdrop of heightened global security concerns following terrorist activity in the preceding years, but also within a society with high levels of socio-economic inequalities. Although significant attention was given to terrorist threats during the World Cup, as with any event of that scale and nature, Brazilian authorities were also concerned with ‘internal’ issues – in particular, the risk of local criminals targeting the event and tourists. The concern about internal threats was always specifically targeted at the neighbourhoods dominated by armed criminal groups and, therefore, security attention was focused on areas and social groups that historically had had problems with the police (see also Ramos and Musumeci, 2005 for a discussion of the historical tensions between police and criminal groups). The militarisation of public security in Brazilian urban centres aligns with the historical stigmatisation and criminalisation of favela dwellers, reinforcing already existing social tensions. Negative perceptions of favelas not only contributed to justifying the tough actions that formed part of MSE securitisation, but also increased levels of insecurity and exposure to human rights violations of those living in stigmatised neighbourhoods.

For Silva and Silva (2005), violence against young people in Brazil is underpinned by racism and socio-centrism, creating the idea that some young people are disposable. This is reflected through the criminalisation of poor youth in Brazil, with high levels of imprisonment and death (Fernandes, 2014). The media has played a role in the dissem- ination of social fear and in the production of social hate and indifference, with young people presented as being a threat to public order and security (Ramos and Paiva, 2007). These factors are used to justify and, to an extent, authorise police abuse and violence (Ramos and Musumeci, 2005).

The creation of socio-spatial strategies of control and containment are shaping new forms of governance of the ‘disposable’ in Brazil (Fernandes, 2013). Such strategies involve structural changes in the way neoliberal governance addresses social insecurity

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(Wacquant, 2010). In this context, the World Cup served as a macro-securitisation where a ‘universal’ sporting competition and a global institution (FIFA) could ‘aim to incorpo- rate and coordinate multiple lower level securitisations’ (Buzan and Waever, 2009: 257). Through bundling together other securitisations, MSEs play a crucial role in reshaping spaces and relationships as part of a creative destruction process of the socio-political, economic and cultural landscape.

Therefore, hosting an MSE in Brazil can intensify existing social tensions and rein- force the marginalisation of young people who are already exposed to rights violations, which tend to be exacerbated in the context of MSE preparation, execution and after- math. The invisibility of socially excluded groups, in contrast to the maximum visibility of profitable issues such as attracting tourists and investors, can also create a harm- ful environment for young people through violations such as child labour and sexual exploitation.

Historically, police operations in favelas often included the exchange of fire between police and local criminal groups, sometimes resulting in the death of local residents, including children (Fernandes, 2013). However, since 2008, the Rio de Janeiro State Government has been implementing a new strategy for public security in Rio’s fave- las, with the creation of Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP, Police Pacifying Units). The focus is on occupying favelas dominated by drug trafficking armed groups through establishing a police unit in the area, and implementing social interventions to restore trust between the community and the police. The impacts of UPP interventions have not yet been evaluated, however, and residents still experience mistrust and fear due to historical violence between the police and favela communities.

Alongside securitisation through UPPs, Favela Maré in Rio de Janeiro faces a number of non-state groups attempting to impose different types of security – what might be viewed as counter-securitisations or co-securitisations. The favela is composed of what de Souza e Silva, Lannes-Fernandes, and Willadino (2008) call ‘criminal armed groups with a domain of territories’, including a group of former police officers and other state security agents (such as the army, fire brigade, etc) who are taking advantage of the lack of state sovereignty to gain control of informal and illegal economic activities, such as illegal cable TV, the control of ‘private security’, and the distribution of essential goods such as bottled gas and water (Alves, 2008). Since 2010, Mare’s complex of favelas has had a UPP present and has been facing conflict between drug traffickers and the military police. During the research period intense shoot-outs between police and drug traffickers continued for two weeks, demonstrating the volatile and at times dangerous context in which many Brazilians live.

Study Context, Methodology and Data

To investigate the ways in which young people’s lives can be transformed through the hosting of MSEs in their cities a creative participatory approach to action research was used. This is proven to be appropriate for work with children who have experienced rights violations, as it facilitates young people to be key actors in the process and has positive effects in making change among communities (Cahill, 2004; van Blerk, 2011). This approach is based on the premise that all young people are experts on their own lives and able to articulate their needs and requirements when given the opportunity. In practical terms this approach involves spending time with young people, develop- ing trust, rapport and new ways of communicating through active engagement on their

Let’s Win this Game Together

terms. The unique culture of Brazilian cities and children’s social contexts, as well as the nature of violence experienced by them, demands such adaptability (Fernandes, 2014). As such, the Brazilian researcher undertook an active process of facilitation engaging young people through participatory drawing, theatre and discussion.

The research focused on the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Recife. These cities were selected due to their status as host cities for the World Cup, as well as historical records of violence against children as indicated by data from the Brazilian Federal Government’s National Secretariat for Human Rights (ANDI, 2014). This paper is based on a series of in-depth participatory focus groups undertaken with twenty young people, who were residents in favelas in both cities, in order to better understand their experience and perceptions of rights violations in the context of World Cup macro-securitisations.

The research collaborated with an NGO in each city. In Rio, the Real Life Institute (Real Life) has worked with young people for over ten years in Favela Maré, the largest favela group in Brazil, with sixteen communities and approximately 130,000 inhabi- tants. Maré has a strategic location in the context of MSEs because the communities are located along the major routes between the international airport and the city centre. Therefore, Maré (which has three organised crime groups engaged in drug trafficking) received particular security-related attention. Real Life works through education and skills training in drawing, graphic arts, music, craft and silk, to promote social inclusion, ethical values and citizenship. The participatory research in Rio de Janeiro involved thir- teen young people enrolled in Real Life, aged between 12 and 15 years. The research in Recife was in collaboration with the NGO Diaconia that operates in the area of human rights and youth participation. Seven boys and girls aged between 11 and 13 years, living in the favela Morro da Conceição, participated.

The research began with discussions about the positive and negative aspects of host- ing the 2014 World Cup to introduce the project and to understand young people’s perceptions and experiences. The participants developed ideas around what changes were required to the organisation of the World Cup and how to limit violations against children. They drew on their creative abilities to express their views and over two weeks set about using the space and materials to create artistic outputs that could convey their voices to the wider public, practitioners and policy-makers. The group in Rio de Janeiro chose to create a series of artefacts (graffiti, t-shirts and posters) to combat violations of their rights under the banner ‘let’s win this game together’, while the Recife group chose to dramatise key messages for stopping violations of children’s rights.

The University of Dundee Research Ethics Committee provided ethics approval and the research adheres to key ethical imperatives for work with children, including any specific Brazilian requirements (see Alderson and Morrow, 2011). Collaboration with partner organisations was essential to ensure that the research was properly explained and that all children who expressed a desire to participate also had parental consent.

Results and Discussion

Impacts of the World Cup on Young People

A series of negative impacts on young people living in low income neighbourhoods of host cities was identified. In particular, four violations against children’s rights emerged: police and army violence, displacement, sexual exploitation and child labour, which is illegal in Brazil (see also Rodriguez et al., 2016). In addition, a number of other negative

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outcomes were mentioned. This section outlines the discussions of these violations and accompanying securitisations and negative outcomes for young people, before exploring whether there is any potential for positive social transformation. The material presented draws on qualitative data created through listening to children’s experiences and percep- tions of the positive and negative impacts of the World Cup. This fills a gap highlighted by Brackenridge et al. (2013) who advocated for research to ascertain the issues, as currently there is no large-scale data set for examining the impacts of human rights vio- lations in the context of MSEs. The first step is, therefore, to understand the issues. There is a lack of formal objective data on the transformations claimed by the World Cup (positive and negative) because of the fragilities of the Brazilian system of Guaran- tee of Rights of Children and Adolescents in failing to produce updated records on these violations and there are infrastructure and capacity problems as cases fail to be properly received and investigated (ANDI, 2014).

Violations of Children’s Rights

In both favelas, police and army violence, part of the macro-securitisation associated with MSEs, emerged as the worst form of rights violation that existed around the World Cup. Data shows that 1658 more complaints regarding rights violations against young people were made via the Dial 100 hotline in June 2014 (during the MSE) compared to June 2013, an increase of 17 percent (ANCOP, 2014). Media reports also indicated that the police and army acted harshly in searching people in the communities. The young people spoke about many cases involving rubber shots, slaps on their heads, furniture and other belongings being broken during houses raids, as well as experiencing physical and verbal aggression towards themselves or people they know:

My aunt left the door open, so they [the army] came, my cousin was lying on the sofa and her sister was in the bathroom, it was then that my cousin spoke calmly that her sister is in the bathroom, and they went anyway [ … ] they touched everything, the house got a big messy after [...] Looks like they have pleasure to do that ... (Focus Group, Rio de Janeiro)

The young people in Rio de Janeiro also mentioned the fear they felt when Maré was occupied by the army in the two months preceding the World Cup. Seeing the soldiers, tanks and weapons up close was traumatising. In their highly emotive accounts, the group recalled how a 14-year old boy they knew had been shot and killed in Mare a few days before the World Cup:

We felt fear. Entered tank, many tanks, until today we have it here. They [the army] began putting soldiers in all exits of favela, the soldiers heavily armed, it seemed like a war … (Focus Group, Rio de Janeiro)

In Recife, the group discussed similar experiences of police beating or being aggressive towards young people from their communities who were found around the stadiums. There was a strong sense of injustice emerging from both groups that such events prob- ably happened because of race and residence in a favela. The group in Recife showed a very clear sense of injustice in speaking about the different attitudes and procedures adopted by police in specific areas in the city. For them, residents in favelas should have the ‘same rights’ as people living in other areas:

A police officer cannot beat in a person, but he did it, why? What is his right to do that? None … the boy didn’t do anything and the police was

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hitting him ... he was just going to stadium but as he was poor and black … I have never even seen a police beat in a rich person because if they do that they will directly to court! (Focus Group, Recife)

Displacement was highlighted as a rights violation because poor families were evicted against their will for the development of car parks and stadiums. Two years prior to the MSE, ANCOP (2012) estimated that over 250,000 people were being removed from their homes to make space for new infrastructure and urban developments required for hosting the MSE. In addition, young people mentioned that processes for the actual removal of families was not properly adhered to, with reports that the money even- tually paid to the families whose houses were demolished was far less than originally stated:

They told me that the value of the house was like, a hundred thousand, so they [the government] destroy it and gives only fifty thousand for the family. (Focus Group, Rio de Janeiro)

They also mentioned that corruption resulted in further negative effects on the poor. Profiteering companies used hosting the World Cup to pay off low-income communities in order to build expensive apartment blocks aimed at the middle classes in a process of forced gentrification – and thus commercialised securitisation – of areas close to the newly constructed stadiums. The construction was not actually related to the hosting of either the World Cup or the subsequent Olympic Games:

In Vila Autódromo this has happened, the people came out [eviction], they [the government] said it was to build the new racetrack, but what in fact is being built is buildings of luxury, I mean, they take the poor to put whom? The rich. The Cup took just the poor from their houses. (Focus Group, Rio de Janeiro)

Again, echoing the discussion on violence, both groups concluded that several forms of social injustice occurred for those living in favelas as they have no economic power to resist any negative consequences of the World Cup put in place by the government:

All this happens because those people who are poor they are worthless, they mean nothing to the Mayor, to the Governor … I am rejected, only because I live in a favela. (Focus Group, Rio de Janeiro)

Why did the government not improve hospitals, schools [instead of stadi- ums]? They have not improved anything which is for the use of the poor, the Brazilian people. (Focus Group, Recife)

Sexual exploitation was discussed in both groups and although none of the young peo- ple specifically disclosed any personal experience of this, they mentioned the existence of areas within their communities where such violations occurred and commented on increased activity during the MSE. In Recife, the participants mentioned an area of pros- titution at the bottom of the hill where they live. During the World Cup they could see people from their communities engaging in prostitution. Similarly, the group from Rio de Janeiro spoke about young crack users who were removed by the Military Police from Avenue Brasil before the World Cup migrating to the first street inside the favela. In their discussions, they stated that the movement of cars looking for sex in that street

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increased (before and during the event) and they supposed some of the new clients were foreigners:

The sexual tourism was happening with the crack users, with the women ... and still nowadays that happens. [R: How does that happen?] Simple, the guy comes from Avenue Brasil and he remained inside the car for a long time just talking with them (crack users) and then after while they took them. (Focus Group, Rio de Janeiro)

In addition, children engaging in labour was mentioned as increasing during the tour- nament. Some children highlighted their own experiences of working alongside family and friends who took advantage of the influx of tourism and increased school holidays associated with the MSE to sell refreshments along routes to, or near to, the stadiums or to collect cans at the fans fests to sell for recycling:

A friend sold cookies, popcorn and water for car and truck drivers here on the yellow line [an important highway near the community that usually has heavy car traffic because it is the main route to central areas of the city]. (Focus Group, Recife)

Social Destruction not Transformation: Negative Effects of the World Cup

A number of other issues were raised in the research process where young people felt strongly that the World Cup did not bring about positive social transformation. For example, they highlighted the significant cost of the MSE and how this was not trans- lated into benefits to them, their families or communities. They also emphasised how the ‘Fan Fest’ resulted in dirty streets and mainly blamed tourists for the mess. A rise in food prices was also raised as a negative impact for families but an opportunity for big food companies to profit. They also noted that any money that came into the country from tourism was not used to make improvements to their communities. Although the government has invested in some types of infrastructure, often as part of the securitisa- tion of the MSE, young people felt this did not benefit them directly. On the contrary, despite significant investment in public transport, their parents had to spend more time getting to work as their usual routes remained heavily congested or closed. The majority of improvements were in central or tourist areas that already had good services.

Perhaps the strongest felt negative effect of FIFA 2014 was the closure of schools during the MSE and in the preceding year as teachers went on strike protesting for better work conditions. In fact, the social inequalities in Brazilian society were the main reason for a series of demonstrations that spread throughout the country in June 2013. Initially motivated by the increase in bus fares in São Paulo, demonstrations gradually spread to other sectors such as education. The young people associated this with the World Cup because the teachers’ strike happened just after the Confederation Cup 2013 and some protests occurred near stadiums and were linked to the social movement against the Cup. This movement questioned huge investments in the MSE when the social needs of the population were not being met. The participants echoed this sentiment, suggesting that schools were more important than stadiums and voiced frustration over the lack of investment by suggesting corruption was to blame:

[ … ] why the government did not build hospitals, schools? They did not improve anything which is for the use of the Brazilian people [ … ] and the

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teachers, the doctors, then the people got revolted with that ...we had many protests, conflicts in the streets that caused great harm to people ... Many teachers went on strike, we stayed without class, it was horrible. The police beat everybody. (Focus Group, Rio de Janeiro)

All of them [politicians] steals money from the population. There is no more left. (Focus Group, Recife)

In both cities, participants concluded that things had not improved in their lives and communities because of hosting this MSE. In Recife, young people voiced the feeling that FIFA was the only winner from the World Cup, especially in view of the profit made from the sale of tickets for the matches. They had not been able to attend any of the games because their families and communities could not afford the tickets. The World Cup effectively took place in middle-class Brazil – keeping the participants of this research at a distance – and, instead of creating legacy and social change in their communities, it merely drained resources from their government and securitised urban spaces at the expense of marginalised children.

Creating a Voice for Young People: Advocating for Change

Positive Effects of the World Cup: Creating Community Cohesion

Had the research stopped here, the impacts of MSEs would appear highly negative. Yet the young people highlighted some extremely positive transformative potential emerg- ing in their communities and this macro-securitisation was also met by more productive responses. This potential was not created by investment in tourism or infrastructure but through the strengthening of community bonds, developed through a national love for football, with communities coming together to support their national team. Children talked about feeling extreme happiness during the World Cup, especially when Brazil was playing well: a joy that was not contained by the securitised spaces of the MSE. This perception was linked with an increased sense of belonging to the country as well as an increased sense of community. Both groups made reference to the passion Brazil- ian people have for football, seeing it as part of Brazilian culture, and discussed how the World Cup left them happier when they were supporting the national players in an atmosphere of hope. The young people discussed how there were moments when fam- ilies, including children, spent time together with neighbours, watching the games or involved in organising local parties and special celebrations such as community barbe- cues. The World Cup offered people time to spend together and create cohesion in their neighbourhoods.

Social Transformation Through the Voices of Young People

Building on their reflections of community bonding coupled with perceptions of the neg- ative impacts they faced instilled a sense of social justice in the research groups. They chose to create messages of transformation through art and drama for their communi- ties: a transformation that ran counter to the securitisation of spaces around the MSE. While the macro-securitisation of the World Cup allowed multiple securitisations to be bundled together in ways that negatively affected marginalised children, this bundling also allowed participants to respond critically to a range of securitisations associated

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with the World Cup – challenging the bundle and its associated narrative, rather than necessarily just responding to one securitisation at a time.

In Recife the group created a mime performance that was subsequently performed during outreach activities run by the NGO collaborator through the project ‘Red Card for Sexual Exploitation’, to raise awareness of this rights violation. The group was split into two with some young people taking on the role of artists and the rest of the group taking on the role of the clay to be moulded by the ‘artists’. The clay group each lay on the floor in a foetal position with their eyes closed. The ‘artists’ then slowly approached and each one chose a piece of clay (represented by a participant) to work with. Each artist then began modelling the clay. The artists, through manipulating the bodies of those who were the clay, placed them into certain positions. The work was done slowly, carefully and with great concentration on the part of the participants. At the end they had created four clay statues. Each statue represented an idea to be disseminated to combat sexual exploitation. They represented: ‘Stop the violence’, ‘Report’, ‘Do not touch my body’ and ‘I have rights’.

In Rio de Janeiro the group also discussed what their key messages for action should be. Following the recent political election earlier in 2014, the group adopted a political campaign style in their creative process to combat rights violations during MSEs. Two different groups debated the issues, with each group trying to put across more and better points than their opponents, at the same time hiding their ideas from their ‘rival candidates’:

Group one’s presentation of proposals:

i Spend less money next time on stadiums and more on basic services for the pop- ulation such as education and hospitals

ii Create better prepared police, and be less violent iii Combat corruption among the police iv More schools v More hospitals

vi Create more job opportunities for parents vii Have more respect for everybody.

Group two’s presentation of proposals:

a Less prejudice against people from favelas b Better prepared policies c Do not allow parents to be violent with children d More treatment for young drug users e The government must give houses to those who need them f More schools g More hospitals h The president needs to come from the favelas.

Through their interest and continued engagement with the topic, Real Life facilitated the group to extend their discussions over several weeks and supported them to develop their political campaign among their peers. Real Life art educators led workshops in Graffiti and Silk and created space for participants to continue producing artistic representations of their ideas. This included graffiti and serigraphy which resulted in a graffiti piece painted onto a prominent public wall in Avenue Brasil, a graffiti screen and a t-shirt with the same design (see Figure 1).

Let’s Win this Game Together

Figure 1. ‘Let’s Win this Game Together’

Source: Artwork produced through participatory workshops as a campaign for social transformation from the FIFA 2014 World Cup.

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Advocating Within, and Against, Macro-Securitisation.

With the positive effects above in mind, it is important to note that, while the macro-securitisation associated with MSEs can have negative impacts on marginalised children, this bundling together of securitisations can also provide an opportunity for them to speak out against harmful policies and practices and to call for change. While many of the securitisations and rights violations that participants were challenging are not new, by organising their response under the idea that we might ‘win this game together’ research participants were able to challenge these violations in different ways. Feeling listened to in the research, both groups began to see themselves and their society from their own perspective and they became more aware of their own potential to inter- vene. They did not just reflect on issues that were affecting their lives but also translated this reflection into actions in their communities, emphasising key messages against rights violations. A critical consciousness (Freire, 1974) or a critical confrontation with current problems requires a strong sense of social responsibility and engagement in transforming society, makes young people agents of rights and not just policy targets.

Moreover, by challenging the way MSEs are organised, young people could chal- lenge macro-securitisation at the macro-level. The Olympics hosted in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 offered an opportunity for this study to work as a baseline that can be used to build upon and to fill a gap in the series of reports on violations published by National Coordination of Popular Committees of the Cup (ANCOP, 2012, 2014). In Rio de Janeiro in particular, the Committee had not explored any specific data on rights viola- tions against children until the publication of our research (Rodriguez et al., 2016). Yet challenging the specific bundle of securitisations brought together in an MSE-associated macro-securitisation may offer opportunities for change. Marginalised groups might be able to use this bundling to help them build a challenge to a wider range of new and pre-existing securitisations and rights abuses.

Conclusion

The identification of a specific legacy from a MSE is complex; it also requires detailed analysis of the aftermath. The organisers of such events, as representatives of sports federations or members of governments, tend to regard the MSE as automatically having benefitted the country and its population. However, without an alignment of this potential with a broad democratic process, and without the greater involvement of groups most excluded from the design, formulation and evaluation of policies and gov- ernmental actions that impact their lives, there is little chance that the hoped-for positive effects of such events might actually occur. Unfortunately, as observed here, the actions around the World Cup excluded the most vulnerable groups from expressing opinions or deciding on actions that came to aggravate their living conditions, leading to exposure to violence and the violation of their rights. The macro-securitisation associated with the World Cup both excluded, and had negative impacts on, young people. However, there were, as noted above, also opportunities for young people to have their voices heard and to challenge securitisation and macro-securitisation; these came alongside broader challenges to violations of the basic rights of young people, and the bundling associated with macro-securitisation enabled some different challenges to violations.

This research faced certain limitations in that it was based on fieldwork in two host cities. Considering the short time frame of the research, it was not possible to explore longer-term impacts of the World Cup on children’s lives. The issues raised here suggest

Let’s Win this Game Together

that further research in this area is urgently required, especially on rights violations arising from security policies related to MSEs.

However, undeniable progress came through the Agenda of Convergence, an ini- tiative set up by the National Secretariat for Human Rights, along with Articulação Nacional dos Comitês Populares da Copa (ANCOP, National Coordination of Popular Committees of the Cup), and one that emerged from the efforts of civil society and social movements: integrated interventions that provided valuable lessons for future MSEs. ANCOP created popular committees in each of the twelve host cities four years before the event to produce data regarding the actions of the government, which contravened the basic rights of the population. Two national reports were produced using this data in 2012 and 2014, which analysed the data on violations of human rights in the preparation phase for the World Cup, including experiences related to housing, work, information, participation, environment, access to public services, mobility and security. These two reports did not focus on violations against children in particular, but just reported the number of families affected in some of the areas analysed. In 2015, the findings of this research contributed to a report of the Popular Committee in Rio de Janeiro City under a new section on children, not present in the previous reports. MSEs might thus bring posi- tive as well as negative transformations, and challenges to the violations associated with the (macro)securitisation of one MSE might be important in challenging problematic practices in future MSEs.

In terms of policies around the World Cup 2014, the Brazilian Government and civil society have made progress in implementing actions to prevent and to minimise violations against children’s rights. The ANCOP policy was set up to bring together the government, the justice system and civil society to prevent and intervene in situations of risk and threat to children’s rights, specifically in the preparation and implementation of MSEs. However, this focused on only two areas: sexual exploitation and child labour. Changes were made in Brazilian law to bar the entry of tourists or immigrants already sentenced or involved in cases related to pornography or sexual exploitation (Decree 876/14), and to remove bail entitlement for those convicted of such crimes (PL 7220/14). However, many NGOs stated the timeline and implementation was not sufficient for success during the World Cup (Rodriguez et al. 2016). There were no formal actions planned in advance of the World Cup by the government with respect to cases of police violence or other violations highlighted in this research. An enhanced role for the state and civil society in protecting children from some types of violence and exploitation can thus come at the same time as elements within the state – as part of the macro-securitisation associated with an MSE – are actively involved in violations against children.

The research highlights key policy recommendations specifically on MSE organisa- tion. A new standard should be developed to protect children and included in the bidding criteria along with a ‘social risk legacy assessment’. In addition, a review and enforce- ment of well developed local policies for children’s rights should be implemented. Specifi- cally, MSE organisers and local committees should provide advanced training to enforce policies protecting children’s rights for MSE and local agencies, including the police. Finally, MSEs (and the (macro)securitisations they are associated with) could provide a valuable opportunity for campaigning for change on the violation of children’s rights.

In conclusion, this paper has contributed to conceptual work on securitisation and MSEs by showing that, in the Brazil World Cup, securitisations were bundled together into a macro-securitisation. We have demonstrated that the concept of macro-securitisation can significantly further the analysis of MSEs, and it is therefore

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important to consider macro-securitisation as well as securitisation when researching such events. As well as the individual securitisations around the Brazil World Cup being harmful to marginalised children and linked to rights violations, this broader macro-securitisation had additional impacts. However, the picture is not entirely nega- tive. As argued above, young people were able to have their voices heard in a number of ways, and (sometimes working with government and civil society) were able to challenge both individual securitisations and rights violations and also macro-securitisation at the macro-level. In addition to the harmful effects noted above, bundling together securiti- sations into a macro-securitisation opens up the potential to challenge these different processes as a bundle – and can thus allow challenges to both new and pre-existing securitisations also to be bundled together into compelling narratives and effective action. As well as bringing the potential for increased violations, macro-securitisations can also open up new possibilities for protest and resistance.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the contributions made to this research by collaborating partners in Brazil (Real Life and Diaconia) as well as to thank all those who participated in research activities. We would like to acknowledge funding received from the OAK Foundation.

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