Social construction of the small arms and light weapons market in Brazil: a contested market

• Grant number: 17/27119-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): April 10, 2018
• Effective date (End): July 04, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Maria Chaves Jardim
• Grantee: Mateus Tobias Vieira
• Supervisor: Philippe Steiner
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris 4), France
• Associated to the scholarship: 17/09791-1 - Small arms and light weapons market in Brazil: the functioning of a contested market, BP.IC

Abstract

This is a proposal for Foreign Research Internship Scholarship that seeks to contribute to the project developed in Brazil on the firearms market, from the perspective of Economic Sociology, in this case, taking into account the statement that markets are social constructs (SWEDBERG, 2004; BOURDIEU, 2000; ABRAMOVAY, 2003; JARDIM, 2012), as well as considering that the firearm is a contested Market, in other words, a market where its logic penetrates in sensitive areas such as the privacy of people, their integrity, health, or the ability to maintain public order (STEINER and TRESPEUCH, 2014). These markets brings a variable horizon where the intensity of the contestations changes over time. Taking the temporary cut from 1999 (the year in which the Bill 292/1999 begins in the Federal Senate, which later became Law 10.826/2003, known as the Disarmament Statute) until 2005 (year of referendum of disarmament), it is perceived that the moral challenge behind the adoption of the Law in 2003 was mainly due to concerns about public safety and urban violence, with the understanding that fewer weapons would mean fewer crimes. However, two years later, when the referendum for disarmament was voted in October 2005, it was noted (by the consistent victory of the "no" to the prohibition of commercialization) that carrying a weapon in the brazilian representation changed from a collective risk to a right that the State intended to curtail. The study of the character of the dispute regarding the firearms market in Brazil and the study of the legal regulation given by the State to the market, allows us to understand the social construction of this market, at once multimillionaire and contested. Contact with the regulation of the small arms and light weapons market in France will allow us to relate both contestations and legislation, helping us to understand the social construction of the market in Brazil, noting that France recently participated in the Wassenaar agreement and joined the Common Position on the Control of Arms Brokering of 2013 as part of the European Union, both laws with the intention to regulate the trade in conventional arms and preventing illegal trafficking, in addition, like Brazil, France is a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). (AU)