Sentidos da violência. A trajetória do Fórum Social de Manguinhos (2007-2016)

Abstract

This study seeks to describe distinct configurations of social actors and their rearrangements after State interventions in Manguinhos Favela Complex. We intend to identify the meanings assigned to violence that urges collective action in the context of State abuse and the militarization of favela territory. Two major events promoted the rearrangement of social actors of Manguinhos Favela Complex: the selection of Manguinhos to receive the government´s Growth Acceleration Plan (Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento – PAC) and the inauguration of a military unit of proximity law-enforcement, named Pacifying Police Unit (Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora – UPP). We can identify three moments of reconfiguration of social collectives on Manguinhos. In the first configuration (2007-2009), the Social Movement Forum of Manguinhos (Fórum Social de Manguinhos – FSM) was assembled by Manguinhos dwellers trying to interfere in the Growth Acceleration Plan interventions. Later, after the State withdrawal from negotiations, the FSM becomes a place to denounce State abuse. In the second configuration (2009-2012), after some members of FSM were threatened and the demobilization of Manguinhos dwellers, FSM departed from follow-up PAC interventions, and seeks new strategies to act in Manguinhos. In this period, with the assistance of the National School of Public Health (Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública – ENSP), FSM meetings were used to discuss the creation of other collectives in Manguinhos. The third configuration (2013-2016) was marked by the UPP inauguration. FSM resumed the denouncement of State abuse, now through police violence. FSM also welcomed mothers of juveniles murdered by cops in its meetings, giving support for the assembling of a new collective, Mothers of Manguinhos. FSM guided it actions by different meanings assigned to violence according to the inflections in its trajectory, from structural conditions of urbanization that contributed to a scenario of violence to State abuse by police violence and structural racism. To do this research, I dialogued with studies in urban violence and social associativism, analyzed FSM public documents, and interviewed members and former members of FSM.