Itinerant Bubbles: hybrid carnival security and privatisation of public spaces

ABSTRACT

Several authors have stated that the performance of private security firms in public spaces fosters privatisation and the exclusion from these spaces of users who are considered inopportune or undesirable. This study examines the hypothesis that these negative impacts are maximised by the intermingling or hybridism between such companies and the police forces. It analyzes the influence of this hybridism on the security model and the tactics adopted by the organised groups of revellers or roped-off blocos that parade during Carnival. It argues that this hybrid security make use of coercive and confrontational tactics to ensure the wellbeing and safety of member revellers, while barring non-paying revellers’ access to the blocos’ internal perimeters. At the same time, they make it difficult for the latter to remain in public spaces in the immediate surroundings of blocos, even preventing them from moving about in those spaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Carnival
• hybrid security firms
• nodular network
• hard policing
• privatisation of public spaces

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Cléber Lopes, Carlos Linhares, Josair Teles dos Santos, Frank de Luce, and the journal reviewers for their valuable comments on this article and to Sabrina Gledhill for the English translation.

Notes

1. Plural policing in Brazil “can be divided into two major segments. On one hand, we have the policing activities performed legally by police officers and private security officers acting with express permission of the state. On the other, there is a varied mix of police officers who sell protection illegally (on or off the job) and non-state players who provide protection services outside the law or without state control” (Lopes, 2015), or even by legal companies created by them but using the names of figureheads or front men.

2. Public policing in Brazil is provided by five organisations at the federal, state, and municipal levels, but the military and civil police operating at the state level play the leading roles. The Military Police are responsible for visible police patrolling and maintaining public order. The Civil Police conduct criminal investigations and play the role of judicial police. This separation of visible patrolling and criminal investigations into two organisations has led to more competition for resources and visibility and less efficiency in public policing (Barreira, 2004; Muniz & Paes-Machado, 2010; Lopes, 2015).

3. For a long time, the blue line painted on the streets by organisers of the event indicated the space reserved for the blocos and the boundaries of the part of the street that could be used by non-paying revellers. Although those lines are no longer painted, the boundaries established by the blue line are still used as a reference for the rope’s expansion, as they demarcate the maximum space that the blocos can occupy. Hence the instruction to keep the rope at the “blue line,” or the far side of the bloco’s expansion boundary, no matter how displeasing this might be for non-paying revellers.

Additional information

Funding

Thanks to the Brazilian Council of Research for the funding support.

Notes on contributors

Pedro Oliveira

Pedro Oliveira is a sociologist. He teaches at the Department of Human Sciences in the Federal Institute of Education in Camaçari, Brazil. He has published on victimisation and policing.

Eduardo Paes-Machado

Eduardo Paes-Machado is a sociologist and criminologist. He is a full professor at the Social Sciences Graduate Programme in the Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil. He has published on victimisation, policing, and security.