The Puzzle of Social Accumulation of Violence in Brazil: Some Remarks

Abstract

The article comments on a new generation of researchers studying the illegal markets in Brazil. In doing so, I summarize the interpretative model of ‘social accumulation of violence’. Initially applied to Rio de Janeiro, several researchers have now expanded it to other Brazilian states as well as to countries with high violence rates, such as Colombia and Mexico. The model is both historical and social. It combines three main factors that have been feeding one another throughout times and expanded across several places: (1) social accumulation of disadvantages; (2) criminal subjection; and (3) expansion of acquisition strategies across networks of informality and illicit markets, for which the offer of political merchandise is decisive. As proposed in previous works, political merchandise means political assets originated from the privatization of segments of the State’s pretension to sovereignty over the monopoly of violence by different agents, who negotiate these assets in exchange for economic assets or other political goods. O artigo comenta trabalhos da nova geracao de pesquisadores dos mercados ilegais no Brasil, e resume o modelo sociologico interpretativo da ‘acumulacao social da violencia’, desenvolvido para o Rio de Janeiro, e utilizado por diferentes pesquisadores em diferentes casos com altas taxas de violencia, como Colombia e Mexico na America Latina. O modelo agrega tres elementos que se retroalimentam na escala do tempo e pela expansao espacial. E preciso que haja i) acumulacao social de desvantagens, ii) sujeicao criminal e iii) expansao de estrategias aquisitivas em redes baseadas na informalidade e em mercados ilegais, entre as quais e decisiva a oferta de mercadorias politicas. Mercadorias politicas sao bens de natureza politica (envolvendo a privatizacao de segmentos da pretensao de soberania do Estado sobre o monopolio da violencia) por diferentes agentes que os negociam por bens economicos ou outros bens politicos.  Publisher's Note: This article has been published in both Portuguese and English. To download the Portuguese version, click the "Download" link and select "PDF (PT)". Este artigo foi publicado tanto em Ingles, como em Portugues. Para baixar a versao em Portugues, clique "Download" e depois selecione "PDF (PT)".