![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
In recent years Brazil has deployed a military takeover of dozens of favelas. Presenting data collected from 2012 to 2014 in one of the favelas, I argue that the process of ‘pacification’ is an attempt at passive revolution, which depends more on manufacturing spatial hegemony through non-military strategies than on the war of manoeuvre that is currently being undertaken. This is developed through an articulation of Gramsci’s theoretical framework with Lefebvre’s perspective of the production of space, which exposes the failure to overcome the fragile presence of state in the territory through everyday state formation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Acknowledgements
Preliminary versions of this article were presented at the Academy of Management Meeting and Critical Management Studies Conference. I thank participants for their comments. I am also very grateful to Bob Jessop, Arun Kumar, Vanessa Brulon and the anonymous referees for the helpful comments and feedback that considerably improved this paper. Responsibility for the content is, however, that of the author.
Notes
1. For more information about the programme, see Cano et al., Os Donos Do Morro; and Fleury, “Militarização do Social como Estratégia de Integração.”
2. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks.
3. Lacerda, “Rio de Janeiro and the Divided State.”
4. Morton, “The War on Drugs in Mexico”; Podder, “State Building and the Non-state”; and Menocal, “State Building for Peace.”
5. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 532.
6. Coutinho, Gramsci.
7. Lefebvre, The Production of Space.
8. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 665.
9. For theoretical discussions, see, inter alia, Santos, A Natureza do Espaço; Harvey, Social Justice and the City; and Wacquant, “Territorial Stigmatization.” For empirical discussions, see, inter alia, Souza, “O tráfico de drogas no Rio de Janeiro”; Silva et al., “Grupos criminosos armados”; and Ballvé, “Everyday State Formation.”
10. Souza, “O tráfico de drogas no Rio de Janeiro,” 1065.
11. Ballvé, “Everyday State Formation,” 605.
12. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 400.
13. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 280.
14. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 294.
15. Following the above-mentioned development of the theoretical understanding of space as an outcome of social relations, important socio-spatial functions which convey specific structuring principles of the urban space were advanced to convey specific features. This includes, for example, the appropriation of territory through territoriality and the superposition of various levels of spatial scales. Such concepts are inseparable from social space, which is understood as a totality. Thus, although Lefebvre always refers to space and not territory, ‘social space’ refers to a space-process which is socially produced and thus inalienable from its various socio-spatial functions.
16. See Abreu, A Evolução Urbana do Rio de Janeiro; and Burgos, “Dos parques proletários ao Favela-Bairro.”
17. Burgos, “Dos parques proletários ao Favela-Bairro,” 27.
18. Valladares, A Invenção da Favela; and Burgos, “Dos parques proletários ao Favela-Bairro”.
19. See, inter alia, Da Silva, “A política na favela”; Cavalcanti, “Tiroteios, legibilidade e espaço urbano”; and Machado da Silva and Leite, “Violência, crime e polícia.”
20. Lacerda, “Rio de Janeiro and the Divided State.”
21. Machado da Silva, “Afinal, qual é a das UPPs”; and Souza, “O tráfico de drogas no Rio de Janeiro.”
22. Souza, “O tráfico de drogas no Rio de Janeiro.”
23. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 210.
24. Call, “The Fallacy of the ‘Failed State’.”
25. Zaluar, A Máquina e a Revolta; and Grillo, “Coisas da vida no crime.”
26. All names have been changed to preserve anonymity.
28. Interview with Zico, April 26, 2014.
29. Cavalcanti, “Tiroteios, legibilidade e espaço,” 44.
30. Interview with Thaisa, May 2, 2014.
31. Valladares, A Invenção da Favela, 20.
32. Perlman, O Mito da Marginalidade.
33. Lefebvre, The Production of Space.
34. Cano et al., Os Donos do Morro, 19.
35. Interview with Zico, April 26, 2014.
36. IBGE, Indicadores Sociais Municipais.
37. Ibid. According to IBGE the northwest region of the city is the most violent.
38. Zaluar, “Unfinished Democratization.”
39. Cano and Duarte, “A percepção dos cidadãos que moram ou trabalham.”
40. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 203.
41. Between January 2014 and August 2015 six new UPP units were either deployed or in the process of installation in the northern and western zones. Three of them are located at Maré, which is on the margins of the main route that connects the city with Rio’s international airport, ‘Linha Vermelha’.
42. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 558.
43. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 314.
44. “Benefícios muito além dos morros,” 26.
45. Ritto, “Na ocupação da Rocinha.”
46. Dantas, “Pacificação no RJ servirá de exemplo para pacto nacional.”
47. Interview with Mauricio, April 23, 2012.
48. Buci-glucksmann, Estado, Classe, Aparelhos de Hegemonia.
49. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 495.
50. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 545.
51. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 304.
52. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 38.
53. Burgos, “Dos parques proletários ao Favela-Bairro.”
54. Medeiros, Funk Carioca.
55. Henriques and Ramos, UPPs Social.
56. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 536.
57. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 306.
58. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 37.
59. There were eighteen officers per 1000 inhabitants, almost eight times more than the city’s average. See Cano, Os Donos do Morro, 170.
60. Beltrame, Todo Dia é Segunda-feira.
61. Silva et al., “Grupos criminosos armados.”
62. Interview with Victor, May 9, 2015.
63. Coutinho, Gramsci, 76.
64. Cited in Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 51.
65. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 145.
66. Field Notes, April 26, 2014.
67. Lefebvre, The Production of Space.
68. Interview with Victor, May 9, 2014.
69. Cavalcanti, “Tiroteios, legibilidade e espaço urbano.”
70. “Rio.”
71. Biller and Petroff, “Favelas ajudam a puxar desempenho de varejistas na bolsa.”
72. Lobato and Antunes, “Empresas ajudam a financiar pacificação.”
73. Interview with Jobson, June 6, 2014.
74. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 280–281.
75. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 486.
76. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 292.
77. Cano et al., Os Donos do Morro, 45.
78. A more accurate account would have to consider the likely shift of violence from one region to another, a common practice according to the literature on public security, which would reduce the net value of spared lives. However, the methodological limitations in obtaining these figures should not invalidate the improvement observed. For more detailed notes on the figures and methodology, see See Cano et al., Os Donos Do Morro.
79. Jessop, “A Neo-Gramscian Approach.”
80. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 46.
27. Cavallieri, Fernando, and Adriana Vial. Favelas Na Cidade Do Rio de Janeiro: O Quadro Populacional Com Base No Censo 2010. Rio de Janeiro: Coleção Estudos Cariocas, 2012.
