Illegal markets in Brazil: global money, local violence

• Grant number: 18/21389-7
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Effective date (Start): January 21, 2019
• Effective date (End): July 18, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Urban Sociology
• Principal researcher: Gabriel de Santis Feltran
• Grantee: Gabriel de Santis Feltran
• Host: Caroline Knowles
• Home Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Goldsmiths, University of London, England
• Associated research grant: 13/07616-7 - CEM - Center for Metropolitan Studies, AP.CEPID

Abstract

The illegal markets - such as drug and guns trade, smuggling or auto parts issued from car theft - not always produce violence and homicide. Anyway, in Latin America and especially in Brazil, different criminal and violent actors dispute those markets. The international literature on illegal markets, although it has developed in recent years, is marked by normative approaches with fragile empirical research. This project focus on urban violence related to illegal markets operation in Brazil. It is part of a larger research on car theft market under development since 2015, being a subproject of the CEPID CEM. The season abroad aims to develop deep contact with international literature on ethnography of markets, not only illegal ones, in a transnational scale. The host professor, Caroline Knowles, works exactly on the theme and we develop a close research collaboration last years. Secondarily we want to contrast the basic dynamics and mechanisms related to illegal vehicle markets in Brazil and UK cities, where car theft is on the rise last years even though levels of inequality and violence are much lower than in Brazil. Exploratory interviews with key actors and scholars in London will be conducted to map the phenomenon of vehicle theft in European contexts. Mapping contrasts with Brazilian context will be the first step to an international comparative and collaborative project on transnational illegal markets, to be developed in CEPID's next period (November 2018 - November 2024).