TY - JOUR
T1 - Space for the State? Police, Violence, and Urban Poverty in Brazil
AU - Garmany, Jeff
PY - 2014/9/12
Y1 - 2014/9/12
N2 - This article explores the relationships between policing and space, querying perceived divisions between the state and society through an investigation of police work. By examining the tenuous position that police officers occupy (e.g., of state actor one moment and nonstate actor the next), it unpacks the state–society contradictions embodied by police. More directly, this article argues that state–society imaginaries are fraught with a host of epistemological tensions and that police work—and, in particular, moments of conflict and police violence—shows clearly the problems and abuses engendered by binary state–society frameworks. Through a case study of a favela community (low-income urban settlement) in northeast Brazil, it illustrates how distance between the state and civil society—and the discretion state actors hold over nonstate actors—relates to moments of police violence and ongoing abuse.
AB - This article explores the relationships between policing and space, querying perceived divisions between the state and society through an investigation of police work. By examining the tenuous position that police officers occupy (e.g., of state actor one moment and nonstate actor the next), it unpacks the state–society contradictions embodied by police. More directly, this article argues that state–society imaginaries are fraught with a host of epistemological tensions and that police work—and, in particular, moments of conflict and police violence—shows clearly the problems and abuses engendered by binary state–society frameworks. Through a case study of a favela community (low-income urban settlement) in northeast Brazil, it illustrates how distance between the state and civil society—and the discretion state actors hold over nonstate actors—relates to moments of police violence and ongoing abuse.
KW - Brazil
KW - favela
KW - police
KW - state
KW - violence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84908179443&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00045608.2014.944456
DO - 10.1080/00045608.2014.944456
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84908179443
SN - 0004-5608
VL - 104
SP - 1239
EP - 1255
JO - Annals of the Association of American Geographers
JF - Annals of the Association of American Geographers
IS - 6
ER -