BUILDING THE BARRICADES Research Report: ‘Three interdisciplinary studies on Mental Health and Substance Use disorders in Complexo da Maré, Rio de Janeiro.’ A fifteen-page research report, edited by HERITAGE. Published in February 2021 as part of papers for the project's final Seminar (delayed due to Covid-19).

This research report provides an introduction to the multi-disciplinary investigation led by HERITAGE into the relationship between territory and resilience in relation to mental health and substance-use disorders in the 16 favelas of the Complexo da Maré. Building the Barricades consisted of three interconnected studies and created a methodological framework that combined the analytical approach of the social and medical sciences with the narrative traditions of performance-related arts practices to explore integrated ways to produce, share and disseminate learning between multiple agents and audiences. Innovative co-creation and simultaneous generation of impact and knowledge exchange was central to the research aims and design.

Three Literature Reviews were undertaken by the research team in the fields of Social Sciences, Culture and Psychiatry for Building the Barricades. The three literature reviews explored Armed Conflict, Health and Well-being in the Maré community. Following the publication of the literature reviews in Portuguese (December 2020), HERITAGE prepared an English-language literature review combining all three in January 2021 as part of papers for the project’s final Seminar (delayed due to Covid-19).

JOURNAL ARTICLE: ‘Study protocol of personal characteristics and socio-cultural factors associated with mental health and quality of life of residents living in violent territories’ (2020). Co-authored by Marcelo Santos Cruz, Paul HERITAGE, Eliana Sousa SILVA, Miriam Krenzinger, Leandro Valiati, Dalcio Gonçalves, Maurício Vasconcellos, Livia Melo Villar, Stefan Priebe.

Study Protocol for

• Study One: a quantitative and qualitative research study on the mental health and wellbeing of Maré residents, with a focus on understanding the links between mental health disorders, exposure to violence, socio-economic background, patterns of drug use (legal and illegal), access to health services, cultural engagement (production and consumption).

• Study Two: a quantitative and qualitative research study with people who use drugs (PWUD) living on or at risk of living on the streets of Maré.

Publicly available at BMC Psychiatry’s website: Cruz, M.S., Sousa Silva, E., Krenzinger, M. et al. Study protocol of personal characteristics and socio-cultural factors associated with mental health and quality of life of residents living in violent territories. BMC Psychiatry 20, 96 (2020).

Quantitative Survey undertaken with 1,200 residents of Complexo da Maré.

This quantitative survey was one of the research instruments used in Study 1: a quantitative and qualitative research study on the mental health and wellbeing of Maré residents, with a focus on understanding the links between mental health disorders, exposure to violence, socio-economic background, patterns of drug use (legal and illegal), access to health services, cultural engagement (production and consumption).

Photographs of field researchers undertaking the quantitative survey with residents of Maré.

Research Instrument: A quantitative survey undertaken with 200 people who use drugs (PWUD) living on streets or within and on the borders of the Maré communities.

Research Instrument - Topic guide for semi-structured interviews. 

Qualitative research for Study One and Study Two was undertaken via 27 semi-structured interviews and 4 focus groups with Maré residents, PWUD and professionals from social services and health centres in Maré.

Research Instrument - Script for focus groups.

Qualitative research for Study One and Study Two was undertaken via 27 semi-structured interviews and 4 focus groups with Maré residents, crack-cocaine users and professionals from social services and health centres in Maré.

Photographs of the semi-structured interviews being conducted via video platforms.

Audio recordings from one of five focus groups (in this case, health workers) undertaken as part of the qualitative research. This recording includes sensitive data not for publication.

Audio recordings from one of five focus groups (in this case, people who use drugs) undertaken as part of the qualitative research. This recording includes sensitive data not for publication.

Creative practice research process and outputs - Study Three

Performance-based arts practices established by HERITAGE to produce new narratives about people with mental health and substance-use disorders in relation to the territory of Maré with a focus on how such practices build resilience and recovery

Between September 2019 and March 2020, HERITAGE set up and directed weekly workshops at Maré Development Networks' drop-in centre for PWUD, Espaço Normal, led by choir master Ricardo Branco. These workshops were based on methodologies HERITAGE has used to create choirs with over 500 homeless people in Rio de Janeiro since 2014. Although curtailed by Covid-19, the new choir of approximately 20 people who use drugs (male and female) has been maintained through the pandemic and opened up a unique way of actively engaging and understanding the experience of a vulnerable community who were the object of part of the study.

The photographs in this slideshow include sensitive data and are not for publication.

Video 1 of 3 documenting the creative workshops with people who use drugs at Espaço Normal. 

This video includes sensitive data and is not for publication.

Video 2 of 3 documenting the creative workshops with people who use drugs at Espaço Normal.

This video includes sensitive data and is not for publication.

Video 3 of 3 documenting the creative workshops with people who use drugs at Espaço Normal.

This video includes sensitive data and is not for publication.

Reports from social workers at Espaço Normal following workshops. Portuguese language.

This item includes sensitive data and is not for publication.

A slideshow of photographs from the creative workshops with six young poets from Maré.

Between March and September 2020, with the support of Welsh theatre director Catherine Paskell, HERITAGE led workshops twice a week with six young artists from Maré: MC Martina, Rodrigo Souza, Matheus de Araújo, Jonathan Panta, Thais Ayomide and Thaina Farias. The workshops explored and generated information about young people’s experiences of health and wellbeing in Maré (with reflections on Covid-19), with the artists collaboratively producing a series of texts, poems, short stories and narratives about their daily lives. This included four short conceptual videos about their experience of mental health, arts and resilience living within the Maré community. 

The poetry workshops led to the production of an hour-long four-part immersive audio drama entitled Becos, with text written and performed by the six poets with direction, dramaturgy and editing by HERITAGE and Catherine Paskell. The ‘play for voices’ was recorded in August 2020 in a professional studio in Rio de Janeiro with a soundtrack composed and performed by Rafael Rocha, one of Brazil’s leading contemporary percussionists. Rocha and HERITAGE also collaborated with the six Maré artists to produce and release a music album entitled Satellite, based on the outputs generated and inspired by the research findings.

Creative outputs from workshops with poets, including texts and poems.

N.B. The primary creative output from these workshops - the four-part immersive audio experience - is indexed at 1.2.3.2.1, under Research Insights.

No. 1 of 4 conceptual videos created by young artists during workshops about mental health, arts and resistance. Publicly available on PPP's YouTube channel.

No. 2 of 4 conceptual videos created by young artists during workshops about mental health, arts and resistance. Publicly available on PPP's YouTube channel.

No. 3 of 4 conceptual videos created by young artists during workshops about mental health, arts and resistance. Publicly available on PPP's YouTube channel.

No. 4 of 4 conceptual videos created by young artists during workshops about mental health, arts and resistance. Publicly available on PPP's YouTube channel.

Between April and September 2020, HERITAGE curated workshops with renowned visual artist Tatiana Altberg and researcher Raquel Tamaio with six young photographers from Maré: Christine Jones, Fagner França, Jailton Nunes, Juliana Oliveira, Jonas Willame and Larisse Paiva. In the workshops the young photographers captured and documented their lives in lockdown through photography and written diaries, which reflected on their experience of mental health, arts and resistance living within the Maré community.   

Creative outputs developed from/during workshops with photographers, including texts and diaries.

N.B. The primary creative output from these workshops - the project website - is indexed at 1.2.3.3.1 under Research Insights.

In April 2020, HERITAGE set up three parallel research projects with the multi-disciplinary team from Building the Barricades to study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Complexo da Maré.  

Study One looked at the mental health impacts using structured interviews with 50 residents who had been interviewed as part of the original study. Study Two looked at the sociological impact of public health measures in communities dominated by Armed Criminal Gangs (ACGs) where there is very little state presence.  Analysis of data from local blogs and other social media sites has built a complex picture of how the communities have processed the general news and public health information to regulate themselves and their families within a framework that has also been defined by the ACGs. These two studies have helped to inform a multi-component study of how public arts practices - identified as such a dominant form of building resistance to and recovery from mental distress in the main Building the Barricades research project - have shifted during the pandemic.

Study Three looked at the changes to cultural participation and consumption during the pandemic, with particular reference to the impact of an emergency funding programme for artists and producers set up by Itaú Cultural (private sponsor), Maré Development Networks and People’s Palace Projects.

 Study One: a quantitative questionnaire undertaken with 50 residents from Maré exploring the mental health impacts of COVID-19.

Study Two: a database of blogs and other social media referencing ‘favela’, ‘COVID-19’ and ‘mental health’ .

Study Three: a quantitative questionnaire undertaken by 31 arts organisations and artists from Maré who secured funding as part of Maré Development Networks' open call: 'New ways of making art, culture and communication in the favelas'.