Citation

Penglase B. Polit. Leg. Anthropol. Rev. 2009; 32(1): 47-63.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Association for Political and Legal Anthropology, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1555-2934.2009.01023.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article analyzes how drug traffickers and police in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, co-participate in the creation of a state of (in)security in the city's poor neighborhoods. I draw on ethnographic research to argue that drug traffickers dominate Rio's favelas (squatter neighborhoods) by producing everyday emergencies (or “ordered disorder”) and by deliberately manipulating secrecy.