"Racism is a perfect crime": favela residents' everyday experiences of police pacification, urban militarization, and prejudice in Rio de Janeiro. Issue 16 (10th December 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Håndlykken-Luz, Åsne
• Is Part Of: Ethnic and racial studies. Volume 43:Issue 16(2020)
• Page Start: 348
• Page End: 367
• Publication Date: 2020-12-10
• Subjects: Racism -- police violence -- urban militarization -- whiteness -- UPP -- Brazil; Race -- Periodicals; Race relations -- Periodicals; Ethnic groups -- Periodicals; 305.805
• DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1800774
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-9870

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article examines r esidents' 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.