Necropolitics: A Critical Essay According to the Logics of ‘Arrego’ in Rio de Janeiro

ABSTRACT

Necropolitics: A Critical Essay According to the Logics of ‘Arrego’ in Rio de Janeiro aims to evince some limits on the use of the term “necropolitics” to analyse police killings. I propose to scrutinize the problem of killings caused by law enforcement agents on two different scales: in a local slum scale referring to a “case” occurred in Morro da Providência, in Rio de Janeiro; in an intercity scale, which concerns the spatial logic of police killings across the city. I support the idea that the problem of police killings has particularities in Rio de Janeiro, that indicates the impossibility of universalize the meanings of death when it comes to the deadly force practiced by the state.

Keywords:
necropolitics; violence; arrego; illegality; death