O legado do herói: políticas de guerra e produção de masculinidades na Polícia Militar do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

The Military Police of the State of Rio de Janeiro is an organization that mobilizes reflections. As a rule, as it is an institution that awakens affections and passions, when recognized as a field of research, polarized discourses emerge on the scene, notably intertwined with controversial aspects of society. Doubled by the immensity of the “blue blood” world, this thesis aims to follow the set of forces that shape the identity fabrics of the barracks. As narrative plans, the cry for police heroification competes with the subjective and objective dimension of brutality, the main emblem of PMERJ for the population of Rio de Janeiro, giving the dynamic that we have witnessed in recent years. Understanding the Military Police as an arena of disputes territorialized by hard and inflexible lines, the present work intends to scrutinize, using the cartographic method, the constant fissures in the process of creating institutional codes and symbols, allegedly homogenizing. On the recorded pages, the voices of those who helped weave the shared experiences: men and women, officers and enlisted personnel, who are part of the hierarchical circle of the state's Military Police. It is in this context that the research proposes to advance along paths capable of questioning the paths frequently taken within the scope of public security, in order to elucidate a landscape that not only radicalizes supposed sides, but that also constantly rivals them. To this end, aiming to activate a series of resources that make the binaries that regulate the field visible and spoken, the devices of “gender” and “war” occupy central positions in this text. They are powerful elements in the invention of analyzers that allow us to map the forces at play, in the midst of the task of tracing meanings that escape the dichotomous reading of a reality that we long to transform. On the front line, those who shoot also die. Enthusiastic about combat, in carrying out the mission, the “man of war”, cannot let himself be discouraged by the risks. This is the virile assumption that constitutes it. In the sacrifice of the legacy, the result would be no different: an increasingly worn out, corrupted and lethal police force. The warrior onslaught is cruel, it leads to exhaustion and, ultimately, in the generation of disposable lives, it invites death.