Ressocialização do controle social e reversão das manifestações violentas em Moçambique

Abstract

This research studies the dynamics of violent demonstrations in Mozambique and the author-ities’ response to this phenomenon. The study starts from the record of the first strike in 1993 until the explosion of hidden debts, the biggest financial scandal that shook the country in early 2016, generating intentions of popular revolts until the year 2022. The purpose is to understand how the violent demonstrations were managed by the authorities, changing over time and influencing their trajectory. To this end, a qualitative meth-odology and non-participant observation were used in peripheral neighborhoods with a history of intense protests in Maputo City. The aforemen-tioned exercise allowed us to verify that after the first violent manifestations erupted, the authorities progressively created new mechanisms of social control to replace the mechanisms that had been dissolved by the strikes or had failed in the con-text. In this process, the cycle of social control that prevented violent manifestations against hidden debts, as well as the different forms of peaceful social demonstrations, was consolidated.