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

Author(s)

Mateus Tobias Vieira

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Araraquara. 2021-04-08.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Ciências e Letras. Araraquara
• Defense date: 2021-02-19
• Advisor: Maria Chaves Jardim

Abstract

The research analyzes the sociogenesis of the small arms and light weapons industry in Brazil, understanding how it emerges and consolidates, always acting in symbiotics with the State. It also seeks to understand the different moments of the internal market for firearms and how moral contestations operate, which at times were able to propose even a ban on the national market. To this end, we use the theoretical framework of contested markets (STEINER and TRESPEUCH, 2014, 2019) to analyze vulnerable populations defined by the legal provisions brought over time, in particular by Law 10.826/2003, known as the Statute of Disarmament, and how the delimitation of certain groups operates as protected by the arms market or protected from the arms market. Later, we will analyze the modifications of these provisions operated by the Presidential Decrees edited by the Jair Bolsonaro administration. The research also analyzes the influence exercised by the Brazilian State in the manufacture of cognitive conventions on the issue of firearms in contemporary Brazil, using the studies of Pierre Bourdieu on the State and the concept of social convention, by Mary Douglas. To this end, we have selected some particularly striking empirical litigation, understanding not only the impact of each change, but the way they were operated. (AU)