Violent masculinities

Historically, policing in Rio de Janeiro has been shaped by the equation of racialized violence and masculinity. Attempts to reform police have paradoxically drawn on forms male that are centered rational professional use force “softer” practices, such as dialogue collaboration, symbolically coded feminine. The failure reflects cultural salience understandings masculinity around within police, historical patterns Rio, political actors’ strategic cultivation violence. Through Janeiro's failed attempt at reform, we theorize relation between state violence, authoritarian projects, transgressive arguing an important appeal authoritarianism lies its promise carve out a space for performing what call wild [masculinity, race, gender, politics, favela, Janeiro, Brazil] O policiamento no é historicamente marcado tanto pela violência racializada como masculinidade. Paradoxalmente, tentativas reformar polícia têm se baseado entendimento que formas masculinas são centradas uso racional e profissional da força práticas “mais suaves”, o diálogo colaboração, simbolicamente codificadas femininas. fracasso reforma reflete predominância modelos masculinidade centrados na dentro polícia, padrões históricos cultivo estratégico masculina por atores políticos. Por meio tentativa do teorizamos relação entre estatal racializada, projetos políticos autoritários transgressivas masculina, argumentando um dos apelos autoritarismo reside promessa criar espaço para realizar chamamos brava. [masculinidade, raça, violência, gênero, política, Brasil] Lean muscular, Sergeant Nazareth was half head taller than his fellow officers unit Alemão favela.11 is sprawling complex favelas located city's North Zone. It long regarded stronghold Rio's largest gang imagined war zone.All names research participants used this article pseudonyms. While intentionally omit smaller communities which conducted research, Alemão's significant size allows us name it without compromising identities worked with. Sitting one squad's bases, while rain poured down, recalled childhood (see Figure 1). Like many colleagues Military Police, he came from poor, rural family Afro-Brazilian descent. From young age, explained, mother taught him had prove world não todo preto ladrão: not all Black people thieves. “My parents always me things right,” said, smiling. “Maybe that's where I get my sense justice from.”22 Police racially diverse, historically associated with racial hierarchies, employs self-identified (French 2013; Salem Bertelsen 2020). When turned 18, left home eastern Minas Gerais living streets before getting job beach kiosk. He earned monthly salary 300 reais (about US$100), barely enough pay rent nearby favela. “But look, now am officer. didn't turn thug. drug dealer,” poorly masked pride. got married wife soon became pregnant. Since could provide growing beach-kiosk paycheck, signed up Police. But motivation wasn't purely financial. “I wanted action,” recalled. idea officer guy who goes war, right? watching movies such, thinking, Damn, cool! So entered try change world, join BOPE [Batalhão Operacões Especiais, paramilitary special operations unit] because thought real police.” Yet couldn't pass BOPE's demanding entrance tests. For 11 years stationed regular being appointed sergeant Pacifying Unit (Unidade Policia Pacificadora, UPP), created wrest territorial control select drug-trafficking gangs. With salary, moved favela low-income suburb Rio. Although neighborhood bore little resemblance affluent neighborhoods Copacabana Ipanema, still proudest moments life. him, becoming directly linked man: kind man seen action movies, family, and, importantly, buy house. action-hero model manhood drew validation incompatible “proximity policing” leaders local authorities introduced UPPs. This be their new community-oriented strategy emphasized deescalating conflict. UPPs built earlier institutional attempts civil-society pressures modernize demilitarize forces after Brazil democratized 1985. they emerged particular economic moment when vying status “modern” progressive global power. units were part ambitious public security initiative rolled ahead 2014 World Cup 2016 Olympics. To assert dominated traffickers, sought establish permanent occupying presence. Mirroring broader international trends toward humanitarian-centered approaches warfare policing, modeled both UN peacekeeping American beat cops. They presented softer, gentler included women (Fassin 2012; Lutz 2002; Saborio 2014; Savell 2016). marketed them response broadly perceived outdated, inefficient, violent policing. main aims reduce level armed challenge representations against crime drugs.33 location largely determined estate interests Olympic infrastructure, signaling entanglement commercial security. Patrol trained human rights would honest upstanding face new, modernized (Menezes 2013). UPP was, therefore, frequently described pacifying only but also themselves (Henriques Ramos 2011). Centered notions preventive collaboration communities, indicated changing perception acceptable levels among Brazilian public, supported killings (Caldeira 2001; French Larkins 2015). stage, viewed managerial reforms emblematic country's modernization. how like understood UPP. Many attracted precisely thanks militarism, often complained focus proximity meant longer demand “respect” through How recruits aggressive view job, other actors society institute softer policing? owe difference, can emplotted anthropology gender? study rejected supposedly feminizing effects “soft” UPPs, preferring maintain masculine As result, scripts put crisis, crisis see representative landscape Far Right grew increasingly influential. Drawing more decade ethnographic engagement employ material Tomas Salem's read data tandem Erika Robb Larkins's ongoing fieldwork private guards. Our text focuses period intensifying January July 2015, examining training patrol practices five different drawing interviews across hierarchy.44 our vary size, location, conflict level. notion culturally produced warrior ethos link order, masculinity, generally hypermasculine, hegemonic formation emerges context wars favelas. In becomes way young, socioeconomically marginalized men (Oliveira 2010; Zaluar 2010). concept analyze workplace dynamics (Gripp 2017; Jaffa Mourão Sørbøe problematic insofar (a) traces origins favelas, reinforcing colonial tropes savagery downplaying state's role producing (Alves 2018), (b) too strongly asserts quality ethos, falling short theorizing fluid, complex, multilayered relationship gendered power relations. Nazareth's story shows, operation masculinities contingent historical, political, social dynamics, insufficiently accounted ethos. case career choice, idealized imagery warriorhood played role, so did multiple manhood, stable provider moral citizen, together these notions’ intersection class identity. analysis draw anthropological work looks Deleuzian “war machines”: groups or forces, including military organizations (e.g., Civico 2016; Hoffman 2011; Mbembe 2003). formulating ideas, Deleuze Guattari (1987) capture constant tension states forces. structuring, hierarchical, boundary-producing formations, machines nomads: transgressive, destabilizing, ahierarchical continually threaten authority. relations formations range autonomy incorporation. At moments, might even transform itself into machine help create (Mbembe 2003, 32). Mapped onto analyses segments sometimes operate outside rule law act semiautonomously, mobilizing pursuit own goals (Larkins Penglase 2014). processes constituted negotiations structuring framework especially well suited situations over claims control, governments struggle postcolonial settings (Kapferer 2009). War salient colonies configured places judicial order suspended sovereign right kill went unchecked 24–25). empirical examine—namely, entanglements projects policing—we concerned iterations shape contemporary exercise sovereignty prerogative reserved European colonizer; recognizing this, dimension Janeiro. implications beyond context, particularly relevant understanding emergence reactionary, strongman intimate cultivate vigilantes, groups.55 here resonate those Duterte Philippines, Trump white supremist movements, Putin's mind, war-machine disruptive, boundless, resisting contain direct by, example, establishing legal codes. Such reflected Daniel Linger's (2003, 100) “wild power,” “unregulated, unofficial, unpredictable, potentially annihilating, therefore terrifying” sees characteristic Brazil's dictatorship, expressed terror Taussig 1987). exercising constitutes performance On hand, institutionalized legally codified expressions. We composed emphasizes balance, self-discipline, forbearance, emotions (Linger 1995). Wild constitute binary traditional sense. Rather, dynamic mapped institutional, intimate, embodied gender formations. Imagine “either/or” “both/and.” Partnered, concepts offer addresses waxing waning take place performances settings. Sometimes contained, channeled, directed; unleashed excessive, forms. say latter natural. specific, resist them, although strategically sanitized form, so-called civilizing 2003; Negotiations modern patriarchal figure plantation owner, strongman, vigilante dictatorship era (1964–85). All three helped Public chastisement stocks, whip form punishment humiliation, iron collars studded spikes prevent escape, masks prohibited slaves eating earth provoking slow painful death, chains tied ground, rooted master supreme under law, marks constantly registered bodies slaves. threat unhinged owner cultivated himself rightful land family. Tracing roots authoritarianism, Schwarcz (2019b) points unquestioned senhor terra (lord land) command domination. Here find intertwinements patriarchy antiblackness: photographs 19th century depicted foreground plantation, extended arranged background, subordinate. does (and never did) describe structure most families … powerful father—provider, protector, authority, guardian honor—remains central, albeit contested, ideological component 2005, 86) protostate, elites slave owners rely uphold order. using conceived early 1800s protect Portuguese crown revolts. After abolition, 1888, instrumental upholding elite privileges (Holloway 1993). Over time, large landowners postabolition poor populations doling favors, creating known coronelismo—a configuration (white) authority that, rank, retains potential, meaning activated certain disputes). represent recent intensification Soldiers, parastate death squads experimented channeling Their perspective informed changes politics II: invention nuclear bomb technification warfare, sphere, Cold feared soldiers emasculated (Cowan Across Americas, militaries counterinsurgency opportunity remasculinize “push-button warfare.” guerrilla model, anti-communist New Man, characterized toughness, resilience, “lack restraint willingness hands dirty, abandonment ‘niceties’ classic indiscriminate violence” 2014, 691). Brazil, foundation dictatorship's dirty (communist) subversives. permeated Armed Forces ideal counterinsurgent materialized BOPE. end tasked invading hypermilitarized tactics equipment Within rhetoric drugs” reconfigured carving spaces contributing unprecedented increase leading establishment altered pre-Olympic years, post-Olympic clearly rise President Jair Bolsonaro's neofascism, backlash discourse rights, policies inclusion enacted leftist Workers Party (Partido Trabalhadores). way, forms, underpins functioning ever-vacillating state. misreading shift less sociability; rather, better reconfiguring reining replacing “civilized” disjunctive nature democracy fraught application rests containment selective some territories bodies, continuing others, 2001).66 uneven framed criminalization poor. Recent analyses, however, attention anti-Black 2018; Vargas 2018). Historical intensifications point uneasy unevenly applied according position: wealthy, elites, apply; Black, justifies Holston 1999). There commonplace ritual personhood, Roberto Matta (1977) describes referring idiom Sabe com quem está falando? (Do you know you're talking to?) signals hierarchies Linger Evoking authority—that is, white, upper-class, authority—the ritualized positions speaker above law. tacitly aware this. regularly challenged upper-class people, habitually brutally apply weapon lower ranks hierarchy, residents. phenomenon highlights “ambiguities, unequal treatment, exceptional rules legislation, privileges, impunity [legitimation] abuses” 2001, 144) intrinsic institutions. Moreover, demonstrate integral, constitutive element police—not last resort mediation production. partially logic, why disadvantaged backgrounds, first place: offers normally wealthy white.77 Transgressive, masculinity—which carries risk excess—is channeled directions given attack hierarchies. talked about evolution officer, there ever-present, negotiation Before joining force, already socialized violence: families, school, civilian academy, then subjected hierarchy disciplinary code conduct Eventually, took posts station exposed intergroup specific accentuated. subjective typically followed chronological best synchronous scripts. Thus, established protocols restrained officers’ movies) led ignore live popular ideals. ways—through entrepreneurialism, religion, landownership, others (Rebhun 1999)—men owning guns working choose two paths: criminal network nonstate. previously completed compulsory service go straight militarized idiosyncratic associations masculinist ideologies justify naturalize domination (Brittan 1989; Herbert 2001). conflation sustained media, media echo chambers. spoke discussed common based seen, blockbuster Tropa Elite Hollywood celebrate US 2). favorite portray tough, ruthless, resilient heroes embody support ideas manliness “the capacity fight (Bourdieu 51). Adding representations, structures explain Police: job's income fulfill pecuniary duties fathers providers, profession make strongmen. Contrasted prospect unemployment, relatively powerless workers, worse, members, envision choice individual victory. Officers’ position derives “right side law” ability balance evident rejection wildness traffickers admiration efficient uncompromising units. Despite relevance embodying requires arduous work. achieved socialization. Recruit life various abuse superiors, draconian punishments, humiliations, verbal assaults during training. feature academies Brazil. A national shows 38.8 percent suffer torture superiors contexts (Lima, Bueno, Santos lunchtime, scream ear monster, parasite…. just messing your emotions, [you] leave quarters pit bull, crazy bite people…. Today, trained, seems dog street fight. (Barros 2015) Here, aggression must Abusing superfluous effect hierarchical quintessential subjectivity simultaneously produces directs conduct. Recruits expected show submission control. socialization identity inscribed rank obedience superiors. hardship source capital right; recognized inscribe differ fundamentally civilians. Importantly, hardens prepares reality According high-ranking officers, “The body [of officer] needs trained. toughened [rusticizado, lit. “made rustic”] complexities war.” Symbolically, rusticidade need remove recruit polis lawless backlands foster transformation. “This causes impacts psyche officer,” explained. inherently (women tough same way), toughness (wild) ruggedness (composed) resilience. Elaborating notion, Lieutenant Leila, psychologist, explained thinks confront [the traffickers], confronts [them], guy, right?” Highlighting simultaneous precarity she continued, “He much handgun ends confrontation someone gun. trafficker weapon, man, macho, criminal.” Her comments reflect Pierre Bourdieu's (2001, 50) suggestion negative aspect privilege found “permanent imposed every