Necropolitics Beyond the Exception: Parapolicing, Milícia Urbanism, and the Assassination of Marielle Franco in Rio de Janeiro

Engaging with the assassination of black city councillor Marielle Franco, paper discusses how “milícia urbanism”, a formation power and capital accumulation driven by parapolice networks, intensifies necropolitical governance Rio de Janeiro. Specifically, this necropolitics is characterised liaisons among armed, political, institutional economic actors that enable acts violence impunity, aggravating conditions for subaltern populations. Dialoguing Black Studies debate on works violent democracies, situates milícia urbanism within postcolonial genealogy parapolicing. Ever since colonial plantation, it argued, parapolicing has been integral to technology avoids sovereign accountability while serving white interests. Whereas previous accounts have centred exception, furthers an understanding “beyond exception”. The concludes Franco’s black-feminist politics vital contestations necropolitics. Discutindo o assassinato da vereadora negra artigo analisa como “urbanismo milciano”, uma formação poder e acumulação impulsionada por redes parapolícia, intensifica governança necropolítica do Especificamente, esta se caracteriza ligações entre atores armados, políticos, institucionais econômicos que permitem atos violência com impunidade, agravando as condições para populações subalternas. Dialogando dos Estudos Negros sobre trabalhos “democracias violentas”, situa urbanismo miliciano dentro genealogia pós-colonial parapoliciamento. Desde plantação colonial, argumenta-se, parapoliciamento tem sido parte integrante tecnologia evita responsabilidade soberana ao mesmo tempo em serve os interesses branco. Enquanto argumentos anteriores centraram na exceção soberana, promove compreensão “além exceção”. O texto conclui política negra-feminista Franco crucial contestações dessa necropolítica. On 14 March 2018, Brazilian her driver Anderson Gomes were fatally shot in downtown Janeiro, sparking vigorous protests worldwide. Marielle, she was commonly referred to, grew up Rio’s favela conglomerate Maré black, lesbian mother adult daughter. She important figure feminist movements member left-leaning Party Socialism Liberty (PSOL). campaigned reproductive rights against sexualised violence, affordable housing health care poorer populations, promotion African-Brazilian culture LGBTIQ+ rights, well democratised urban security politics. Here, most vocal critics militarised police interventions peripheralised neighbourhoods, which cause hundreds deaths each year, mostly young men (Loureiro 2020; Neuenschwander Giraldes 2018; see also Bueno Lima 2019; Hirata et al. 2021). Thus articulating series highly contentious issues from what Djamila Ribeiro (2017) called intersectional “lugar fala” (locus speech or standpoint), “undoubtedly one gifted leaders new left”, (2018:133) state. took place during deep political crisis Brazil. influential project left-wing date—the Workers’ (PT), between 2003 mid-2016 had supplied presidents—was state decline after impeachment Dilma Rousseff, conservative, neoliberal, far-right forces struggling hegemony, using aggressive propaganda increasingly undermining principles rule law (Anderson 2018a; 2018). In contrast, stood generation politicians who—more rigorously than former presidents Lula Silva Rousseff—advocated democratisation demilitarisation society, giving voice especially women queer people (see Loureiro 2020). so doing, championed policies evangelical right, alliance militarist landlord lobby groups, already mid-2000s declared full-blown “culture war” (Messenberg 2017; Larkins 2019). More specifically, killing month interim president Michel Temer authorised federal military intervention tasked observe capacity Municipal Chamber. Her persistent criticism lethal operations favelas perceived deeply provocative many who advocated benefited reigning regime governance. Occurring intensely contested conjuncture, targeting queer, leftist woman further needs be seen backdrop longer-term racialised patriarchal architecture “spaces appearance” (Butler 2015) Brazil.11 Reviewing Hannah Arendt’s account “space appearance”, Judith Butler appearances are embodied through formations sexuality, gender, race. Particularly pertinent life highlights “the persistence body those seek its debilitation eradication” (2015:83). As writings shown, long ascribed subordinate position society (Perry 2016; Smith 2016a, 2016b). Dominant actors, therefore, Marielle’s entry into central transgression “proper place” Caldwell 2007), perception compounded background, identity, orientation. partner Mônica Benício explained memorial letter, “being lesbian, feminist, parliamentary house full rich men, symbols sectors represent all backwardness country, act along” (cited Teixeira 2018).22 All translations Portuguese sources author. Conservative politicians, particular, frequently attacked reviled councillor. Even assassination, several prominent including Jair Bolsonaro, refrained expressing their condolences. Two even publicly destroyed street sign commemoration Rio. life, then, formed assistant Fernanda Chaves “conjunto coisas” Freire 2019), whole “assemblage things” profoundly challenged hegemonic While, at time writing, still unclear behind killing, authorities assume carefully prepared clearly targeted, carried out professional killers associated illicit rapidly expanding groups known “milícias” Benmergui Gonçalves Manso Otavio Araújo Regarding these investigations brought light involve policemen, religious who, instance, collaborate vote-pooling schemes trading real estate. herself intimate knowledge networks. worked advisor then PSOL deputy Marcelo Freixo when he headed investigative committee Janeiro’s milícias 2008—and, facing death threats, went temporary exile Europe. Attending presumptive involvement extended networks insurgent calls scrutinising “necropolitical governance” (Alves 2018), specifically “gendered necropolitics” (Smith 2016a), work. his study São Paulo, Jaime Amparo Alves (2014) uses term designate historically shaped forms control terror produce massive suffering communities peripheries also, regarding Vargas Alves, Christen (2016c), others ties institutions cities. Such activity intensified gendered violence. For trans homeless people, often primary targets killings, mothers suffered range long-term consequences Rocha 2012; 2016a). Rio, reconfigured particularly Leandro Rafael Soares (2019) call miliciano”: milícia-driven system extraction, investment involves illegal appropriation public land allotment, mass construction buildings, estate financing informal credit” (Benmergui 2019:382; can bring relief mutually imbricated. Various armed Latin America diagnosed “security orders” “patterns sovereignty”, Desmond Arias Daniel Goldstein (2010) conceive manifestations “violent democracies” Barnes Davis 2009, 2010). While directly speaking urbanism, discussions bracketed, however, American cities colonialism, racism patriarchy, situated interconnected fields studies, geographies anthropology pointed 2009; 2016c; Thomas From perspective, analytic tools used strand insufficient examining systematically exposed. These usefully focus, though, Javier Auyero “clandestine connections”, meaning exchange state, private endow authority, clout immunity prosecution. course investigation such connections become newly visible. Making productive use different foci democracies necropolitics, frictions approaches, follows, I reframe clandestine elements postcolonial/post-slavery epitomised reinvigorated urbanism. This technology, contend, not captured terms shifting sovereignty, notion figuring prominently both Instead, understand part “technology dependency”, exceeds exception (Hutta first outline sovereignty understood debates mentioned. Outlining zoom the—now largely stalled—investigations wake assassination. leads me discuss genealogical threads connect contemporary conjuncture social spatial context colonialism plantation. attention facilitated evade systems accountability, exceeding exception. Returning Brazil’s current conclude fleshing situatedness activism feminism inspired ongoing—though precarious—ways contesting Janeiro elsewhere. question occupied focus seeking theorise strand, Diane Davis’ (2009) essay “Non-State Armed Actors, New Imagined Communities, Shifting Patterns Sovereignty Insecurity Modern World” exemplary. Drawing Charles Tilly’s post-Weberian state-making, understands classically constituted state’s monopolisation means simultaneous establishment citizen-government ties. neoliberalisation, suggests, modern nation-states shape deterritorialised operate transnational scales. process, emerged connection sub- trans-national territories, where blur lines kinds (state/non-state, public/private, licit/illicit). Exercising late-modern world, account, premised controlling effectively enrolling subjects territorialised authority. conception here heuristic gathering phenomena—including territorial exercised police, paramilitaries, security, vigilantes, gangs—under rubrics “formations sovereignty” (Stepputat “contested sovereignties” (Sieder 2011; Bobea 2010; allows authors changes orders across diverse contexts, tied rather wide-ranging view authority established. specified precisely enacted, affected, “sovereign” order differs other respects, remains somewhat elusive, signalled frequent substitution umbrella “violence-based authority”, order”, “rights rule”, “territorial dominion”. analytically placing legacies plantation centre-stage, shifted towards specific technologies “performed thus embodied” (Thomas 2019:14) thereby racialised, sexualised, gendered. very grammars democracy view, structured around antiblackness perpetuate divisions slavery (e.g. Deborah Thomas, noting “sovereignty best dynamic practice, therefore there no static constellation ‘it’ refers” 2019:5), identifies techniques deployed accumulated moments “conquest, settlement, exploitation development common 2013). Among these, “spectacular techniques” punishing era targeted enslaved African indigenous “displaying tortured dismembered bodies discourage breaches order” (ibid.). similar vein, discussing assassinations police-linked squads Paulo’s Fundão Zona Sul (2018:59) points killings take “in spaces squares streets hidden sight”, suggesting spectacle defining feature sovereignty”. (2016c:48) moreover scrutinises dimensions spectacular they performatively “demarcate gender/race/class/sexuality throughout city”, licensing mundane exclusion. enactments expand rework Foucault’s (1995) description torture European age absolutism. They pick Agamben (1998, 2005) that, drawing Carl Schmitt, posit foundational When how, law, relies uncanny agents terrorise dead bodies”, invokes Schmitt’s definition “he decides [sic] exception” 2018:8; 2016c:49).33 capacity, notes, shows police’s “sinister power” decide only kill, but “who dead, should taken hospital, deserves live” (2018:61; Denyer Willis 2015). It tack adopt Achille Mbembe’s (2003) “necropolitics”, centres service exposure populations occupation 2014; 2016c). pervasiveness spectacles post-plantation societies, engage approach developed Foucault emergence permutations technologies. renders analysable mode contingent knowledge, practice embodiment, distinguishing other—though potentially coexisting—technologies discipline liberal governmentality Hutta Mountz Moreover, refracting engagements racism, Americas move beyond Eurocentric genealogies. Besides occupation, discussion antiblack dehumanisation chattel Frantz Fanon, Saidiya Hartman, Orlando Patterson, Frank B. Wilderson III, 2011, 2013; 2018).44 Fanon’s “zone nonbeing” historical slavery, systemic dehumanisation, denial kinship, sexual violation enslaved, descent Sexton ways dehumanised being exposed “un-gendering” treated (Hartman 1997; Douglass reworking power, emphasise particular attached conceptions human conceived spatially temporally circumscribed, “always 2016c:50), forming grounds discourses harmonious nation founded tend toward build Foucault, Mbembe, Hartman. Where latter highlight condition place”, “sovereignty” arguably comes under pressure. apparent text, characterises sub-Saharan Africa “not subject legal rules” (Mbembe 2003:25). Mbembe argues, “is legally codified activity” (ibid.).55 relates government Africa, “no bond” colonised “covenant” Hobbes’s terms, established, rise form “plunders object deprives own” 2001:34). According author, described replaced colonies “pure slaughter without risk instrumental justification” Works focusing Middle Passage push analysis further, does necessarily pass logic “ban” Agamben. Smith, Denise F. (2009), notes “it because never considered begin feels empowered commit genocidal acts” (2016c:44; To extent we speak dispenses any codification decision exception? (2003), might respond positing themselves paradigmatic which—according Mbembe—are systemically excepted ius publicum, juridical order.66 argues reference 19th century inhabitants “savages” living outside “civilizing” colonisation sought extend “wilderness”, exception: colonies”, writes “are location par excellence controls guarantees judicial suspended—the zone deemed ‘civilization’” (2003:24; Hansen Stepputat 2006). way, always sense permanent serves assert power. Alternatively, stretch encompass facto akin Blom Finn Stepputat’s (2006) “de “form grounded violence” “tentative emergent” (Hansen 2006:297; Wenner 2020).77 actually oscillate invocation Agambenian “origin (2006:301) violence-based approaches merits, offer alternative way forward remainder paper—for two main reasons. First, dehumanising Brazil affirm order. Posing per arbitrary eclipses along partial continuities metropole. Second, undoubtedly widespread uncodified operated tension suspending techniques. Instead either theorising stretching sovereignty’s practices exercised, suggest complementing necropolitics–sovereignty nexus dependencies. propose connections” productively organised dependencies genealogically distinct from, yet imbricated with, (as disciplinary biopolitical) formation, show, dependency complements invisibilisation ethos vigilantism, flesh operation more-than-sovereign, though state-supported, following section turns Franco. Francisco Silva, formally called, Pedro Mathias moving car Estácio district Central Zone 38-year-old back meeting women. survived attack. Since “Quem mandou matar Marielle?”—“Who commissioned murder Marielle?”—has centre numerous initiatives campaigning crime valorisation legacy.88 See website Instituto Franco: https://www.institutomariellefranco.org/ (last accessed 3 June 2022). explicitly directed held responsible delays failures investigation. denouncing individual failures, what, declaration NGO Human Rights Watch (2018), broader “climate impunity feeds cycle violence”. noted facilitate impeding remained less clear mechanisms work rendering application selective. Following (2006), tempted identify wherever manifests.99 when, much-cited paraphrase, define “ability punish, impunity” (2006:296; illustrate foster activities, related West Zone. hand, shown virtually come scrutiny attachments running rackets Zone, stretched-out, low-income region residential some industrial areas (Araujo Cortado close reading revelations designed, performed subjects, exposing urbanism’s underpinning. unpack will interrogate inequality examine revealed investigations. Milícia city’s uneven geography, marked class cleavages. Historically, tended reside better-off neighbourhoods South districts, whereas brown overwhelming majority disenfranchised North Zones precariously serviced scattered (Campos 2006, cleavages fuelled stigmatisation favelados latently deviant criminal “dangerous classes” 2010), harking 18th centuries fears autonomous animated regular martial raids blac