Policing and urban imaginaries: new security formats in southern cities

• Grant number: 14/19989-5
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: November 01, 2015 - October 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Urban Anthropology
• Convênio/Acordo: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)
• Principal Investigator: Susana Soares Branco Durão
• Grantee: Susana Soares Branco Durão
• Principal researcher abroad: Daniel Alexandre da Silva Seabra Lopes
• Institution abroad: Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Ana Paula Galdeano Cruz ; Catarina Lopes Oliveira Frois ; Chiara Fonio ; Clara Young Han ; Cláudia Vicentini Rodrigues de Almeida ; Conor Oreilly ; Helene Maria Kyed ; Luiz Antonio Machado da Silva ; Maria Rita Duarte Raposo ; Rafael Jorge Soares Duarte Marques ; Sabina Andrea Frederic ; Taniele Cristina Rui ; Tomás Bover
• Associated scholarship(s): 18/03020-6 - Policing and urban imaginaries: new security formats in Southern cities, BP.TT

Abstract

This project intends to develop a comparative ethnography of new security formats emerging in contemporary urban contexts of both southern Europe (especially within the PIGS group of countries) and the Global South. The focus will be centered on novel policing projects developing at the margins i.e. in a grey area somewhere between the military and the civil, the legal and the illegal, the formal and the informal, the visible and the invisible, violence and peace. The diverse policing activities contemplated in this project will be grouped into two distinct empirical clusters, the first one being focused on what is here conceptualized as 'shadow policing', the second one on 'proximity policing'. The first cluster is dedicated to hidden policing activities motivated by fear of social and political revolt, and the second is focused on policing activities motivated by fear of physical violence. In each of these clusters, the idea will be to gather perspectives from both policing supply and demand, avoiding more common circumscriptions usually leading to one-sided ethnographies. Throughout this project, policing is mainly defined as any activity related to security services whether public or private, legal or illegal, formal or informal within urban and political environments. The project also intends to produce results applicable beyond the academy, namely through a series of extension activities involving discussion groups and training sessions with the aim of promoting a security culture respectful of both legal and moral limits. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

DURAO, SUSANA; LARKINS, ERIKA ROBB; ARGENTIN, PAOLA. In the shadows of protection: Brazilian police in private security. POLICING & SOCIETY, v. N/A, p. 17-pg., 2023-06-15. (14/19989-5)