“Captains of the Sands”: Urban Illicit Ecologies and Sandscapes in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

Urban Political Ecology (UPE) has explored human–soil relations, emphasising the political dimensions of environmental degradation in and through urbanisation. However, UPE lacks critical reflection on governance collusions with illicit actors. Bridging this gap, my paper combines UPE with literature on criminal urban governance, focusing on how urban sand shapes illicit urbanisation. To address UPE's oversight of criminal governance, I explore Rio de Janeiro's militias expanding their illegal portfolio through terrain modification, linking illicit activities to territorial control. Integrating criminal governance with UPE, I argue for the concept of Urban Illicit Ecologies (UIE). Urban sandscapes become multi-sited, illicit geographies revealing imbrications of formal state and criminal actors, political dimensions, and inequalities in resource extraction and environmental processes. By understanding urban illicit ecology, we gain insights into the contested claims of political authority and territorial control between militias and the state.