Conversations in Conflict Studies Presents Anjuli Fahlberg

“Non-Violent Organizing in the Midst of Repression: Learning from Activism in Rio de Janeiro’s Gang Territories” with Anjuli Fahlberg.

Did you know that 80% of the world’s population lives in a country that is either “not free” or “partially free”? In these contexts of political repression and threats of physical violence, how are people able to mobilize for social change? This is a question Dr. Fahlberg tackles in her award-winning book, “Activism under Fire: The Politics of Non-Violence in Rio de Janeiro’s Gang Territories” (Oxford University Press, 2023). In this talk, Dr. Fahlberg describes some of the major concepts developed in her book, theorizing the strategies deployed by social movement actors in Cidade de Deus, one of Rio de Janeiro’s most dangerous gang-controlled neighborhoods. 

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and Participatory Action Research conducted between 2014 and 2020, Dr. Fahlberg shows how activists organize for rights and resources in a context of severe repression and provides concepts that allow us to examine the possibilities for non-violent collective action in other areas of violence and repression.

Anjuli Fahlberg is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Tufts University. Her research applies an intersectional lens to the study of social movements, urban violence, and uneven development in Latin America, with a particular focus on the possibilities for and types of activism in gang territories.