Abstract

In the face of perceived injustice, a huge number of intense anti-World Cup movements took place throughout almost every host city from June 2013 to July 2014 in Brazil. Over a million Brazilians joined anti-World Cup protests in more than 100 cities throughout Brazil in early July 2013, and this civil resistance lasted until the beginning of the World Cup. After the Cup, a number of violent protests in Rio de Janeiro against the 2016 Olympics occurred as well, and these produced far more controversy over the event. This study examines the emergence of social movements against the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games held in Brazil. Despite the importance of the subject, there has been a scarcity of literature addressing networked social movements in Brazil that opposed mega-sporting events and how this relates to theoretical debates about differentiated citizenship and the right to the city. To fill this gap, this article aims to explore the characteristics of protests. Drawing on an analysis of archival sources and interviews conducted during fieldwork in Brazil, this study shows that such demonstrations can be best seen as “networked social movements” that had been struggling for the asymmetric distribution of rights around the neoliberal mega-events. These networked social movements entailed the characteristics of the right-to-the-city movements that intended to subvert the social systems of differentiated citizenship in Brazil.