This article brings attention to the rise of digital computing in policing in Brazil, where new technologies have been integrated into the criminal justice apparatus to surveil, manage, and police criminalized communities. I examine a reformist public policy called the Pacto pela Vida (Pact for Life) in Recife and foreground the process of collecting and interpreting data at crime scenes as a means by which to analyze how criminality is understood and conceptualized. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, I explore how data collected by the police link racial identifiers, places, and different types of offenses. Hence, I argue that the Pacto governmentality infers a preexisting logic of power and control over the Black poor using new technologies and policing models mainly imported from the United States. When police collect data at crime scenes and categorize it according to provided standards, the sociocultural context in which events occur become invisible. [Brazil, criminality, digitized policing, neoliberal security, race] R e s u m o Este artigo quer chamar a atenção para o surgimento da computação digital no policiamento no Brasil, onde novas tecnologias foram integradas ao aparato da justiça criminal para vigiar, gerenciar e policiar comunidades criminalizadas. Eu examino uma política pública reformista chamada Pacto pela Vida no Recife e coloco em primeiro plano o processo de coleta e interpretação de dados em cenas de crime como meio de analisar como a criminalidade é entendida e conceituada. Com base em uma extensa pesquisa etnográfica, exploro como os dados coletados pela polícia vinculam identificadores raciais, lugares e diferentes tipos de crimes. Portanto, argumento que a governamentalidade do Pacto infere uma lógica preexistente de poder e controle sobre os negros pobres usando novas tecnologias e modelos de policiamento importados
In 2009, French street artist JR appeared in the oldest favela in Rio de Janeiro and started taking photographs of women who were collectively mourning the recent slaughter of three teenagers. In a communal effort, these black‐and‐white portraits were reproduced at an enormous scale and pasted onto the favela's facade. Up close, the images were so big that they seemed to have no particular form. But from a distance, the faces assembled, revealing women's eyes gazing steadily at the city beneath the favela. In this article, I explore how the installation can be understood as a commentary on gendered and racial state violence against Black motherhood. I turn to the images as ethnographic subjects to theorize ways Black femininity is constructed, experienced and understood in Rio. The central question I pose in this article is about the power and potential of the motherly gaze to replace the violent male stare—the one that misrepresents and disempowers those most vulnerable to distortion's ill effects. I make the case that the (bri)collage is a call to further examine the relationship of poor Black mothers with the state, how they combat negative public representation ascribed to Black youth, and how they negotiate the safety of their families.
At the foot of the favela Santa Marta, a tour guide wearing a colorful shirt saying "Rio Top Tour" ushered a group of tourists into a modern funicular. The favela (working poor area or shantytown) is in an affluent neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, but until recently, it had been ruled by the Comando Vermelho drug gang. "This is crazy," I heard one young blond man say excitedly as the group slowly ascended the steep hill and the visitors photographed the maze of brick houses. Finally, at the top, the breathtaking landscape of Rio unfolded, featuring a prime view of the Sugar Loaf and Copacabana Beach. "Look, it's Michael Jackson!" Pedro, the tour guide, pointed proudly to a bronze statue and giant mosaic of the King of Pop, surrounded by simple shacks. 1 The group of gringos (the term for foreigner, usually American), under the watchful eyes of residents sitting on their doorsteps, photographed the favela with fascination. Then, a Black woman wearing a military police uniform came up the stairs onto the viewing platform. "Oi Pricilla! Come and meet our visitors," Pedro said as he waved the officer over. "Pricilla is great. Everything changed with the pacification police here. That's how I got this job," he informed his audience. At the time, the Unidades da Polícia Pacificadora (Pacification Police Units, UPP), a community police effort, was a new attempt by the Brazilian state to reestablish authority in territories ruled by drug cartels. Circled by residents and tourists, Pricilla Oliveira de Azevedo, commander of the city's first "pacified" favela, smiled for the cameras, shook people's hands, and thanked Pedro for his kind words. Children from the community ran up to Pricilla to give her beijinhos (kisses). "Conseguimos transformar lugares temidos pelos moradores e visitantes em áreas turísticas" (we managed to transform places that
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