Solidary Neighbors? The Involvement of Middle-Class Communities in the Governance of Security and Disorder in Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 104398622110343
Author(s):  
Cleber Lopes ◽  
Fabricio Silva Lima ◽  
Lucas Melgaço
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Southern Brazil ◽  
Community Governance ◽  
Criminal Opportunities ◽  
Nodal Governance

This study explores how residents govern security in two middle-class neighborhoods in Londrina, the fourth largest city in southern Brazil. Utilizing nodal governance theory, it analyses a security program called Solidary Neighbor ( Vizinho Solidário, in Portuguese) in both neighborhoods, in place since the early 2010s. Document analysis, direct observation, and interviews with 26 respondents comprising mostly residents, but also police officers, sex workers, and homeless people, were conducted to assess how the program works and what implications it has for the governance of public spaces. The findings show that the Solidary Neighbor program functions as a community governance node oriented toward reducing criminal opportunities with the use of technologies to monitor outsiders and displace sex workers and homeless people. The article concludes that particularly in contexts such as in Brazil, bottom-up security initiatives have the potential to produce hostile and exclusionary public spaces.

scholarly journals Contradictory and Intersecting Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion of Street Youth in Salvador, Brazil

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Ursin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Homeless Persons ◽  
Street Youth ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Longitudinal Qualitative Research

Drawing on longitudinal qualitative research in Brazil involving participant observation and narrative interviews with young homeless persons, and semi-structured interviews with middle class residents, local businesses, and patrolling police officers, three overlapping yet contradictory dimensions of inclusion and exclusion are developed. First the hegemonic exclusionary discourse that tends to produce stigmatizing labels on poor people in general, and boys and young men on the street in particular, is mapped out. Second, socio-spatial exclusionary mechanisms involving architectural measures, surveillance cameras and violent policing, guarding the neighbourhood from stigmatised ‘others’ are examined. Third, the less recognised but equally important inclusionary mechanisms, facilitating street life and enabling a sense of belonging among young homeless people are explored. A simplistic and unidimensional conceptualisation of social exclusion is critiqued while demonstrating the multifaceted, intertwined, and contradictory character of homeless people’s social relationships with middle class residents, businesses, and police. Furthermore, the exclusion/inclusion dualism that is vivid in the existing literature is questioned. It is suggested that a nuanced picture is vital to increasing our understanding of the everyday lives of homeless populations and that further investigation and theorization of their exclusion as well as inclusion is needed.

Outsourcing the Self

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunil Bhatia
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Romantic Relationships ◽  
Call Center ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Self ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
First World ◽  
Class Youth ◽  
Call Center Workers

This chapter analyzes how call center workers, who are mostly middle- and working-class youth, create narratives that are described as expressing modern forms of “individualized Indianness.” The chapter demonstrates how call center workers produce narratives of individualized Indianness by engaging in practices of mimicry, accent training, and consumption; by going to public spaces such as bars and pubs; and by having romantic relationships that are largely hidden from their families. The narratives examined in this chapter are created out of an asymmetrical context of power as young Indians work as “subjects” of a global economy who primarily serve “First World” customers. The interviews with Indian youth reflect how tradition and modernity, mimicry and authenticity, collude with each other to dialogically create new middle-class subjectivities.

Complaint-Oriented “Services”: Shelters as Tools for Criminalizing Homelessness

2021 ◽  
Vol 693 (1) ◽  
pp. 264-283
Author(s):  
Chris Herring
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Health Initiatives ◽  
Public Health Initiatives

This article argues that the expansion of shelter and welfare provisions for the homeless can lead to increased criminalization of homeless people in public spaces. First, I document how repression of people experiencing homelessness by the police in San Francisco neighborhoods increased immediately after the opening of new shelters. Second, I reveal how shelter beds are used as a privileged tool of the police to arrest, cite, and confiscate property of the unhoused, albeit in the guise of sanitary and public health initiatives. I conclude by considering how shelters increasingly function as complaint-oriented “services,” aimed at addressing the interests of residents, businesses, and politicians, rather than the needs of those unhoused.

Theorizing Regulation-in-City for Homeless People’s Subaltern Strategy and Informality: Societalization, Metabolism, and Classes With(out) Housing

2021 ◽  
pp. 089692052110205
Author(s):  
Mahito Hayashi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Urban Metabolism ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
Housing Consumption ◽  
Urban Theory ◽  
Critical Urban Theory

This paper aims to expand critical urban theory and spatialized political economy through developing a new, broad-based theoretical explanation of homelessness and the informal housing of the deprived in public spaces. After reviewing an important debate in geography, it systematicallyreasserts the relevance of class-related concepts in urban studies and, mobilizing post-determinist notions, it shows how a class-driven theory can inform the emergence of appropriating/differentiating/reconciliating agency from the material bedrock of urban metabolism and its society-integrating effect (societalization). The author weaves an urban diagnostic web of concepts by situating city-dwellers—classes with(out) housing—at the material level of metabolism and then in the sociopolitical dynamic of regulation, finding in the two realms urban class relations (enlisted within societalization) and agency formation (for reregulation, subaltern strategies, and potential rapprochement). The housing classes are retheorized as a composite category of hegemonic dwellers who enjoy housing consumption and whose metabolism thus appears as the normative consumption of public/private spaces. Homeless people are understood as a subaltern class who lacks housing consumption and whose metabolism can produce “housing” out of public spaces, in opposition to a hegemonic urban form practiced by the housing classes. These urban class relations breed homeless–housed divides and homeless regulation, and yet allow for agency’s creative appropriation/differentiation/reconciliation. This paper avoids crude dichotomy, but it argues that critical urban theory can productively use this way of theorization for examining post-determinist urban lifeworlds in relation to the relative fixity of urban form, metabolic circuits, and class relations.

scholarly journals HIV/AIDS risk among female sex workers who use crack in Southern Brazil

2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 830-837 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Malta ◽  
Simone Monteiro ◽  
Rosa Maria Jeronymo Lima ◽  
Suzana Bauken ◽  
Aliamar de Marco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sex Workers ◽  
Female Sex Workers ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
Health Providers ◽  
Southern Brazil ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
Access To Health ◽  
Aids Risk ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Hiv Aids

OBJECTIVE: To understand the social context of female sex workers who use crack and its impact on HIV/AIDS risk behaviors. METHODODOLOGICAL PROCEDURES: Qualitative study carried out in Foz do Iguaçu, Southern Brazil, in 2003. Twenty-six in-depth interviews and two focus groups were carried out with female commercial sex workers who frequently use crack. In-depth interviews with health providers, community leaders and public policy managers, as well as field observations were also conducted. Transcript data was entered into Atlas.ti software and grounded theory methodology was used to analyze the data and develop a conceptual model as a result of this study. ANALYSIS OF RESULTS: Female sex workers who use crack had low self-perceived HIV risk in spite of being engaged in risky behaviors (e.g. unprotected sex with multiple partners). Physical and sexual violence among clients, occasional and stable partners was widespread jeopardizing negotiation and consistent condom use. According to health providers, community leaders and public policy managers, several female sex workers who use crack are homeless or live in slums, and rarely have access to health services, voluntary counseling and testing, social support, pre-natal and reproductive care. CONCLUSIONS: Female sex workers who use crack experience a plethora of health and social problems, which apparently affect their risks for HIV infection. Low-threshold, user-friendly and gender-tailored interventions should be implemented, in order to increase the access to health and social-support services among this population. Those initiatives might also increase their access to reproductive health in general, and to preventive strategies focusing on HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections.

Veto Power

2021 ◽  
pp. 131-194
Author(s):  
Noah Tsika
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Motion Pictures ◽  
The United States ◽  
Veto Power ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Black Residents ◽  
White Supremacists

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, police censorship of motion pictures was a significant and always controversial index of the expansion of law enforcement agencies to include activities that many Americans deemed unbecoming of cops. As such, it offers considerable insight into contemporary debates over the scope of police power in the United States. Today’s arguments have deep roots, including in a practice that was far more prevalent—and far more contentious—than conventional histories allow. When it came to vetting motion pictures, the methods of municipal police departments varied widely. But they often illuminated broader problems: Detroit police officers who voted to ban anti-Nazi films were themselves outspoken white supremacists; Chicago cops who balked at cinema’s suggestions of eroticism were also, outside of departmental screening rooms, aggressively targeting sex workers; and Southern lawmen who sought to eliminate intimations of racial equality were known for their brutal treatment of Black residents. Police censorship of motion pictures took place not in a vacuum but within the ever-widening ambit of law enforcement, and it merits scrutiny as a measure of the authority, influence, and cultural identities of municipal cops.

scholarly journals Public Spaces Protection Orders: a critical policy analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 182-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicky Heap ◽  
Jill Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Local Council ◽  
Protection Orders ◽  
Starting Point

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critically appraise the Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) policy that was introduced by the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act (2014). Within a designated area assigned by the local council, PSPOs can prohibit or require specific behaviours to improve the quality of life for people inhabiting that space. Those who do not comply face a fixed penalty notice of £100 or a fine of £1,000 on summary conviction. However, the practical and theoretical impact associated with the development of these powers has yet to be fully explored. Design/methodology/approach Using Bannister and O’Sullivan’s (2013) discussion of civility and anti-social behaviour policy as a starting point, the authors show how PSPOs could create new frontiers in exclusion, intolerance and criminalisation, as PSPOs enable the prohibition of any type of behaviour perceived to negatively affect the quality of life. Findings Local councils in England and Wales now have unlimited and unregulated powers to control public spaces. The authors suggest that this has the potential to produce localised tolerance thresholds and civility agendas that currently target and further marginalise vulnerable people, and the authors highlight street sleeping homeless people as one such group. Originality/value There has been little academic debate on this topic. This paper raises a number of original, conceptual questions that provide an analytical framework for future empirical research. The authors also use original data from Freedom of Information requests to contextualise the discussions.

scholarly journals Efficiency Losses in Healthcare Organizations Caused by Lack of Interpersonal Relationships

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-227
Author(s):  
Sérgio Almeida Migowski ◽  
Iuri Gavronski ◽  
Cláudia de Souza Libânio ◽  
Eliana Rustick Migowski ◽  
Francisco Dias Duarte
Keyword(s):  
Quality Management ◽  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Southern Brazil ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Healthcare Organizations ◽  
Efficiency Losses ◽  
Formal Leadership ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Despite all quality management and integration literature prescriptions to implement strategies for a better organizational performance, healthcare organizations support a model that is inefficient, expensive, and unsustainable over time. This work aims to examine the interpersonal relationships in three large hospitals located in Southern Brazil and its relation with organizational efficiency. Through a qualitative and explanatory research, semi-structured interviews were applied to 32 professionals, in addition to a document analysis. The data analysis shows that integration occurs at the formal leadership level only in one of the organizations and does not involve the medical and operational professionals. Quality management seems not to be fully incorporated into care routines, and are related to efficiency losses. This scenario is probably related to the lack of integration among the professionals and the consolidation of trust, leadership, and communication.

Offensive Language Crimes in Law, Media, and Popular Culture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elyse Methven
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Criminal Sanction ◽  
Public Place ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Dominant Ideologies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Offensive Language

In Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, public order laws criminalize the use of swearing, offensive, or abusive language in a public place. Police officers use these laws as tools to assert “their authority” or command respect in public spaces where that authority is perceived to be challenged via the use of profanities such as “fuck.” Alongside the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary, representations of swearing in the media influence ideas about whether swear words warrant criminal punishment. A particular “common-sense” assumption about language (language ideology) prevalent in media representations of offensive language crimes, echoed by politicians and police representatives, is that disrespecting or challenging police authority via “four-letter words” warrants criminal sanction. However, popular culture can counter dominant ideologies with respect to offensive language, police, and authority. This article examines how the use of swear words in N.W.A’s popular rap song “Fuck tha Police” (1988) and in the HBO television series The Wire (Simon & Burns, 2002–2008) can inform and challenge legal assessments of community standards with regards to offensive language.

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