Classes Perigosas e medo no Rio de Janeiro: uma história de conceitos entre 1880 e 1930

Abstract

This work is the result of research that deals with the spread of fear, as well as the construction of dangerous classes in Rio de Janeiro through the history of law and concepts. In this sense, this thesis seeks to understand how the relationship between the concepts of “bandit”, “capoeiras”, “marginal”, “vagrant” and “vagabundo” in criminal legislation, dictionaries and the press contributed to the construction and propagation of fear and criminalization of certain social groups in Rio de Janeiro in the period between 1880 and 1930. Regarding the topic, it is highlighted that the construction of the idea of fear of these classes was the main mechanism for the creation of so-called dangerous or marginalized classes. It is then necessary to conceptualize and define who the members of these dangerous classes would be, those considered by the State to be marginal or bandits. Le Goff defines marginals as those denied by society. When analyzing the use of certain words with the aim of shocking or causing fear, it appears that both in the press and in criminal legislation, fear is individualized and directed at a certain part of society. The fear that develops here is about crime, more precisely about the criminal agent. From the verification of the existence of the crime and the agent who commits it, a rigid form of visualization of this agent begins to be created, called a stereotype. In this scenario, the figure of the vagrant previously criminalized in the Criminal Code of the Empire appears, accompanied by capoeiras adapted to the new social context in which they are inserted with more severe penalties in order to not only serve as the legal repressive apparatus of the State, but also a form of expression ideology of a society that called for the criminalization and punishment of poverty in urban centers.