IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020 - 36

which may even be the same city by name, but not by
permissions, possibilities, access, and concessions.
In terms of the cause for this exclusion, the Map creators briefly explained that:
"[d]ue to lack of data, buildings in areas of informal occupation (favelas) were not considered and
the roofs have no slope, i.e., the roof is always
horizontal (sic)" [17].

FIGURE 4. Search categories in the Solar Map of Rio de Janeiro.

The note cleared up the lack of data in the areas of
informal occupancy, and contradictorily, stated that
on the subject of roof's slopes, all dwellings had no
inclination (as if all without exception were covered
only with concrete slabs without roofs). Now if there
was no data, how could it be stated that, "the roofs
have no inclination, that is, the roof is always horizontal? (sic)"

Traces of Favelas' Exclusion

FIGURE 5. Small area of solar potential near the Babilônia
favela (tip of the arrow).

excluded, it is interesting to say that more important
than the intentionality are the practical results of the
"making do" of the Solar Map.
The central issue is that, regardless of the intentionality or control that the builder has attempted, his/her
work will continue to act in terms of permissions, possibilities, and concessions, even if not foreseen or
desired, i.e., it will continue to make some kind of politics [16].
As it has been widely demonstrated, the Solar Map is
material support6 that engenders a politics of exclusion
of the inhabitants of the gray areas of the Solar Map,
mapping in the same scheme, in the same view, a more
colorful city of alternatives and a gray city of restrictions,
6
Albeit it is a software, its materiality is seen on the screen, in the interfaces, in
the codes, in the reports, in the systems and people to which it is connected.

36

In correspondence exchanged with the entities
involved in the development of the Solar Map, the
methodology used for the inclusion of areas in the Map
was questioned by the authors of this paper. SEDEIS
and EPE provided the responses, while SEDEIS only
directed to the Solar Map site itself, repeating the
explanatory note that "there was no cartographic information available for these areas." EPE, meanwhile,
sent a link to the document produced by the company
TerraGIS Consultoria Geoprocessamento as requested
by the German GIZ, Refinement of the mapping of the
potential area of roofs of residential buildings in Brazil [18] in which, surprisingly and contradictorily to the
explanations of the entities, showed that the methodology included the roofing potential of the so-called
"underprivileged or subnormal communities." Moreover, the study included as one of its specific objectives the photogrammetric evolution of the roofs in the
city of Rio de Janeiro, aiming at completing the IPP
database with data referring to buildings of poor communities (IPP definition) [18, p. 8].
The lack of information from these regions on the
Solar Map suggests, therefore, that GIZ-indicated refinement studies [18] have not been carried out or that their
products have not been utilized. It would bring greater
methodological complexity to the construction of the
Map to include such areas.
Taking a closer look at the relationships between the
systems embedded in the conformation of the Solar
Map, we verified that the "shaded" areas of the Solar
Map are the same areas that appear delimited in the
system that gathers and makes available data about the
favelas of Rio de Janeiro (see example of Morro do
Leme communities in Figure 6). The Low Income

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

∕

MARCH 2020
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020
