Activism, justice and the centrality of care: Brazilian’s ‘mother’s against police violence’ movements

ABSTRACT

The article investigates the Brazilian social movement of mothers whose children were killed by State’s security agents between 2003 and 2017. Its purpose is to understand how these women define their claims for justice, as they struggle to see those responsible for the assassination of their children properly judged. Our hypothesis is that their activism politicizes motherhood and makes it a public matter. To investigate that, we conducted in-depth interviews with twelve activists on the mothers’ movements against police violence. The interviews were conducted between June and August of 2017, in two metropolitan areas in the Southeast of Brazil, the city of Rio de Janeiro (RJ) and Santos (SP). They confirmed the politicization of motherhood, redefining care as resistance and a matter of justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Justice
• care
• motherhood
• violence
• social movements
• Brazil

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The interviewed profiles are presented in Table 1. We opted to preserve their real name, assigning random popular Brazilian names to each one.

2 The research presented in this article is part of the Masters Thesis in Political Science developed by Quintela, under the supervision of Biroli (see Quintela, 2017).

3 There are three exceptions to the criminalization of abortion in Brazil: pregnancy resulting from rape, risk of death for the women, and fetal anencephaly

4 Created in 2004, in response to repeated police slaughters that took place in Rio de Janeiro, Rede is the most prominent group among those fighting state violence in the city (Rocha, 2014). It is constituted by different movements against State violence, and it defines itself as representative of communities, movements and relatives of victims.

5 The Brazilian ‘Mothers of May’ was created after a slaughter that took place in the state of São Paulo between May 12 and 16 of 2006. The ‘Crimes of May’ slaughter, was a response to a wave of attacks by members of the criminal faction PCC (First Command of the Capital) against the state public security forces. In a period of 5 days, 505 civilians and 59 public agents were killed. Among the victims, 80% were under 36 years old, 96% were men and more than half were black. Only 6% of the victims had criminal records. Most cases had summary execution characteristics (LAV-UERJ, 2008). It is the most notorious mothers against police violence movement in Brazil today.

6 Created between late 2014 and early 2015, by two mothers whose children were killed by police officers in the favela where they were born and raised, Manguinhos (RJ): Angela and Fernanda. The group constitutes the Rede network.

7 This catchphrase was important to the visibility of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian’s current far-right president elected in 2018. His popular approach to violence includes militarization and the ‘exclusion of illegality’ in cases of death or harm caused by the police.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES): [National Program for Academic Cooperation Scholarship (PROCAD)]; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPQ): [Exclusive Dedication Scholarship].

Notes on contributors

Débora Françolin Quintela

Débora Françolin Quintela is a PhD candidate at the Political Science Institute (IPOL) at Universidade de Brasília, holding a CAPES scholarship of exclusive dedication.

Flávia Biroli

Flávia Biroli is an associate professor at the Institute of Political Science (IPOL) at Universidade de Brasília, a CNPq researcher and the former president of the Brazilian Association of Political Science (ABCP) (2018–2020).