"Security is a duty of all"

collective representations and post-pacific security policies in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This article intends to address one of the most latent concerns of current Rio society, and especially of public authorities: the question of urban violence and the problem of public security. The notion of urban violence here does not refer to isolated violent events or to the percentage of criminal acts in certain strata of society and/or city regions, but rather to their articulation with the social order itself, as a reference for models of conduct built symbolically in everyday social life. In the current context of the public security policy agenda, for example, after a decade of activity, the logic of the pacification model, implemented in the city of Rio de Janeiro since 2008, and the whole apparatus of devices, techniques and speeches that legitimized it, starts to suffer dismantling, opening up space for new security problems. To this end, I analyze the organization of the middle classes of the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro in relation to their networks of programs, projects and security policies in the current period, following the monitoring of the Community Safety Councils, and the current collective representations about urban violence and security policies in their market networks and interests in a city security project.