From the logic of favor to the logic of horror: an essay on the geography of violence in the city of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

The present article addresses the geography of urban violence in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It shows how State action is apart from the logic of spatial experiences through which Rio’s popular working classes work and get organized. The goal is to stimulate a discussion that could reach beyond the stigmatizing discourses related to the slums population. The adopted methodology resembles the curves of the slum’s alleys and lanes as an option for us to drop empirically in the concretude of the slum’s space. It is also a way to revisit the marginalized narratives of lyrics composers who have, for decades, given many clues for mapping the socialization logics and spatial experiences of the studied population. Historically, the appeals of the mainstream media such as the quantitative research have influenced the construct of a universalist speech that naturalizes the criminalization of the poorest and their ways of integration/surviving in the cities. Thus, we can say -even though hypothetically- that the convencional mechanisms of analysis and methodological tools based on the distance of their «objects» are insufficient for a minimal understanding of what goes on in everyday oppression and resistance of the working classes.