“Racism is a perfect crime”: favela residents’ everyday experiences of police pacification, urban militarization, and prejudice in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This article examines residents' everyday experiences and perceptions of changing urban politics and racism in a "pacified" favela, or poor informal neighbourhood, in Rio de Janeiro, drawing on longitudinal ethnographic data from 2011 to 2018. The findings suggest that despite a discourse on inclusion, human rights, and citizenship, the police pacification program and urban security interventions aimed at "civilizing" the favela's residents as "undesirable others," drawing on racialization. The naturalization, legitimization, and reproduction of police violence promote the operation of racial and socio-spatial inequalities and privileges through what I describe as pigmentocratic everyday practices. These processes continually shape the condition of possibilities for the dehumanization of blackness, exclusion, inclusion, and resistance in a society influenced by the myth of racial democracy and that celebrates both diversity and ideologies of whitening.

Criminal Governance and Social Mobilization in Brazilian Favelas

“…Contributing to the recrudescence of an already undesirable condition, claims of racism and prejudice have historically followed police action in favelas (French 2013;Håndlykken-Luz 2020). Since group identity is rooted in history (Dawson 2020), in-group policy demands (Enos et al 2019) and the recognition and legitimatization (or lack thereof) of their actions depend on cultural elements (Swell 1999).…”

From ‘pacification’ to ‘licence-to-kill’: Favela residents’ experience with the UPP from 2011-2018

“…Many studies of pacification have emphasised the criminalisation and militarisation of the urban poor (Fahlberg, 2018;Franco, 2014;Leite, 2012;Valente, 2016), where residents are treated as internal enemies (Leite & Farias, 2018, p. 240), drawing on a 'civilising' approach (Valente, 2016, pp. 63-66), enabling the 'genocide' of black Brazilians (Vargas, 2008, p. 754), a 'double negation' of black enemies (Alves, 2018, p. 8) unfolding 'racism as a perfect crime' in the context of necropolitical violence in Rio's favelas (Håndlykken-Luz, 2020;Munanga, 2012).…”