Abstract
ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between informal processes of urbanisation and order-making at Brazil's urban margins. It draws on research conducted in contrasting neighbourhoods in the peripheries of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, analysing the influence of different kinds of criminal organisation on these areas. It is argued that the unpredictable processes surrounding peripheral urbanisation – the irregular occupation or subdivision of land, the growth of diverse markets, physical consolidation and, in some cases, eventual formalisation – provide a dynamic backdrop against which local order and disorder are produced. To theorise these interrelated processes, I mobilise the concept of ‘pacification’. This is usually used to refer to violent state interventions against socially and racially marginalised populations that are followed by measures designed to create more lasting stability. However, I argue that, while it may ultimately have such effects, pacification should be understood as a provisional outcome of ongoing negotiations between state and criminal actors rather than as a coherent, top-down project.
Highlights
As has been established by a large body of literature (e.g. Caldeira, 2017; Holston, 2008; Telles, 2010), Brazil’s urban peripheries have historically expanded through an interplay between informal and formal logics
An substantial body of literature has looked at the ways in which criminal actors participate in the governance of such peripheral spaces (e.g. Arias & Barnes, 2017; Feltran, 2020; Richmond, 2019; Telles, 2010)
Rather than addressing them separately, as the literature has tended to, this article explores the relationship between these two phenomena: the process of peripheral urbanisation on the one hand, and order-making in peripheries on the other
Summary
As has been established by a large body of literature (e.g. Caldeira, 2017; Holston, 2008; Telles, 2010), Brazil’s urban peripheries have historically expanded through an interplay between informal and formal logics. They emphasise how both state and criminal actors are present in these spaces and interact with one another to co-produce local (dis)order, regulate illegal markets, and generally establish the social and security conditions under which local life is lived.
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