Aqui só se anda com cria : o movimento associativo, as relações políticas e a implementação da Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora na Mangueira

Abstract

The implementation of the Peacekeeping Police Units (UPPs) in some slums in the city of Rio de Janeiro has somehow impacted their daily routine. In the present work, a primary analysis of how communitarianism has taken shape in Mangueira since the installation of the Upp is displayed. From that moment on, the politics as well as the community associations have gotten closer to the police forces, which represent the very face of violence and abuse of power to the people living in the slums. The work dawned with my public organizing endeavor at Mangueira s social UPP. Pursuing the understanding of the local dynamics, that is how the community s political and social arrangements would be directly impinged by the launching of the local UPP, we aim to build an ethnography-like retrospective of this communitarianism in Mangueira. Researching the history and evolution of slums, we have taken the task of reconstructing somewhat Mangueira s own history, focusing on collective actions, communitary encounters and several leadership-building processes which coordinated Mangueira s social movement itself. Upon the ethnographic approach done within the eighteen-month immersion in the slum, the target is to retrieve the significance of this process from the many perspectives of the distinct social players involved. Research results from two clear paths with the UPP arrival regarding the local communitarianism. The first one spots the organization and the legal environment originated by the notion of the constant State presence. Mangueira s UPP tries to redefine regional order, cutting directly into resident s life. For several of them however the UPP s goal is to replace drug dealing, though quite a few gangs remain in the slum managing hidden activities. The regulation of space in the slum touches local arrangements as well as human relations. The second path deals with the loss of access control inside the slum which maneuvers awkwardly the affinity among inhabitants associations and with the local political party (PMDB Comunitário) likewise connected to Congressman Chiquinho da Mangueira. The once-active role of local unions seems to have lost to the UPP its priority when it comes to organizing and meeting local needs. What was seen as the go-to place for residents of Mangueira has surrendered with the arrival of UPP and its members. New kinetics has shaped political relations and human interactions, forcing local leaderships to adjust.