Abstract

RICOTTA, Giuseppe. In Enemy Territory: The Units of the Pacification Police (UPP) in a Favela in Río de Janeiro, Brazil. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2017, n.29, pp.63-79. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda29.2017.03.

This article analyzes how 38 Units of the Pacification Police (UPP) were mounted in some favelas in Río de Janeiro, especially the Santa Marta favela. The aim of the operation was to end the territorial control exerted by gangs of drugs-traffickers, guarantee the return of the State and promote the integration of the favelas into the city as a whole. After describing the context in which these operations take place, the article discusses the results of this intervention in the favela of Santa Marta and speaks of how the soldiers who undertook the operations thought of them. The definition of the favela as a territory in which the enemy lives and the mutual suspicion between the inhabitants of the favela and the UPP characterize the relations between the residents and the soldiers, which are anchored in a model of policing in which the notion of the internal enemy continues to shape the modus operandi of the armed forces, an aspect which reveals the weak points of the new policing models, which are ambitious and visionary but lack the needed reforms.

Keywords : Violence; urban violence; favela; urban security; military police; mega-events; Río de Janeiro.

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