Contested Terrains: Mega-Event Securities and Everyday Practices of Governance

Sports mega-events (SMEs) remake cities as global brandscapes of leisured consumption; reliant in part upon securitisation designed to create an atmosphere free from disturbance and render invisible those “abject” populations who might puncture the tourist bubble that surrounds stadia and fan-zones. Yet, such ‘shiny’ cityspaces are not devoid of complexity, contestation, and compunction. In this paper, we draw on extensive ethnographic data collected in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (prior to, during and after two SMEs) with local women involved in semi-legal sexual labour. Our focus is on the contingent nature of securitisation amidst the contested terrains and trajectories of SME urbanism. Our analysis resonates with observations from other host cities, challenging dominant myths that sports mega-events create impermeable securitised cityscapes by revealing a more fluid topography of formality and informality, contestation and negotiation, oppression and power.