Women and Police Violence: Feminist Reflections on Violent Pluralism in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
This article examines police violence in the context of “violent pluralism” as defined by Arias and Goldstein (2010), from a feminist and intersectional perspective. The findings are based on two field studies conducted in 2016 and 2018 with 40 women residents of 13 favelas in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Based on qualitative data obtained through interviews, focus groups and participatory observations, two main arguments are formulated. First, despite the invisibility of Afrodescendent women's experiences, they are not spared from police violence, which is rooted in social relations of class, race, gender and spatiality. Second, given the recurrence of violent police incursions, women find themselves with an additional workload, particularly in the area of care work, which continues to be socially devolved to women. Protecting oneself from police violence on a daily basis is therefore strongly linked to a form of preventive care (or « dirty care ») that makes daily life significantly more difficult and complex. In the end, this article proposes to conceive police violence as a fundamental part of urban violence in the favelas, which is itself linked to the broader context of violent pluralism that characterizes many “democracies” in Latin America. Thus, the feminist perspective on police violence also aims to contribute to an understanding of violent pluralism that takes into account the continuity of racial violence and gender relations.