Grappling With Complexity in Research with the Military Police The Far-Right and Anthropology’s Civilizing Mission

Abstract: This text examines the challenges of carrying out fieldwork with the Military Police, an institution responsible for systematically targeting Rio de Janeiro’s favela populations with extreme levels of racialized state violence. It discusses how anthropologists can describe police officers...

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Main Author: Tomás Salem
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Associação Brasileira de Antropologia 2025-01-01
Series:Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1809-43412024000101008&lng=en&tlng=en
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author Tomás Salem
author_facet Tomás Salem
author_sort Tomás Salem
collection DOAJ
description Abstract: This text examines the challenges of carrying out fieldwork with the Military Police, an institution responsible for systematically targeting Rio de Janeiro’s favela populations with extreme levels of racialized state violence. It discusses how anthropologists can describe police officers in ways that avoid the pitfalls of binary thinking: of reproducing a cosmology of war that assumes a strict division between good and evil and instead produce accounts that hold space for complexity and change, without assuming a moral relativist position.
format Article
id doaj-art-ad25127e2f8b4d6382d98bcdc96e54c2
institution Kabale University
issn 1809-4341
language English
publishDate 2025-01-01
publisher Associação Brasileira de Antropologia
record_format Article
series Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology
spelling doaj-art-ad25127e2f8b4d6382d98bcdc96e54c22025-01-21T07:43:43ZengAssociação Brasileira de AntropologiaVibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology1809-43412025-01-012110.1590/1809-43412024v21e211009Grappling With Complexity in Research with the Military Police The Far-Right and Anthropology’s Civilizing MissionTomás Salemhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-6270-8811Abstract: This text examines the challenges of carrying out fieldwork with the Military Police, an institution responsible for systematically targeting Rio de Janeiro’s favela populations with extreme levels of racialized state violence. It discusses how anthropologists can describe police officers in ways that avoid the pitfalls of binary thinking: of reproducing a cosmology of war that assumes a strict division between good and evil and instead produce accounts that hold space for complexity and change, without assuming a moral relativist position.http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1809-43412024000101008&lng=en&tlng=enBrazilResearch ethicsMoralizationPerpetratorsPolice violence
spellingShingle Tomás Salem
Grappling With Complexity in Research with the Military Police The Far-Right and Anthropology’s Civilizing Mission
Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology
Brazil
Research ethics
Moralization
Perpetrators
Police violence
title Grappling With Complexity in Research with the Military Police The Far-Right and Anthropology’s Civilizing Mission
title_full Grappling With Complexity in Research with the Military Police The Far-Right and Anthropology’s Civilizing Mission
title_fullStr Grappling With Complexity in Research with the Military Police The Far-Right and Anthropology’s Civilizing Mission
title_full_unstemmed Grappling With Complexity in Research with the Military Police The Far-Right and Anthropology’s Civilizing Mission
title_short Grappling With Complexity in Research with the Military Police The Far-Right and Anthropology’s Civilizing Mission
title_sort grappling with complexity in research with the military police the far right and anthropology s civilizing mission
topic Brazil
Research ethics
Moralization
Perpetrators
Police violence
url http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1809-43412024000101008&lng=en&tlng=en
work_keys_str_mv AT tomassalem grapplingwithcomplexityinresearchwiththemilitarypolicethefarrightandanthropologyscivilizingmission