Commodification of violence in Latin-American cities: practices, discourses and representations between Rio de Janeiro and Medellin

Abstract

This research project addresses the interface between urban violence, as a category that consolidates and gives meaning to the lived experience in cities, and the commodification associated with the favelas in Rio de Janeiro and places related to drug trafficking in Medellín. The theoretical contribution of Urban Sociology and Sociology of Mobilities is chosen to pursue the following question: which are the practices, discourses and representations comprehended in the conversion of urban violence into merchandise? The main hypothesis is that the emergence of new urban flows is triggered as a device of consistency for public security projects and the modification of global imaginaries, even though productive elements of militarized management are converted into products and requalify the racialized maintenance of the social and symbolic order. In order to carry out this comparative, socio-ethnographic and multi-situated sample investigation, "mobile" methodological resources will be used in association with conventional techniques and procedures. Among them, the comparative analysis of promotional, informative and media material related to the object of the research, mobile observation on the selected territories and in-depth interviews with other subjects who may confront each other over the subject. (AU)