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Thesis Chapters by Ingri Buer
This thesis offers a new consideration of peace processes that engage with the needs and challeng... more This thesis offers a new consideration of peace processes that engage with the needs and challenges of marginalized, racialized populations living through urban violence in the expanding peripheries of the postcolonial world. The research draws on the perspectives of favela community leaders, educators and activists on the challenges to their work in reducing violence in their communities, which were gathered during eight months of qualitative fieldwork in and around the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2019-2020. Through a critical lens, the thesis considers Rio de Janeiro as a colonial city where historical and continuous state exclusion, criminalization and murder of favela residents feed a violent cycle of drug-related crime and violence in the favelas. It questions the meaning of peace and top-down public security policies like the Police Pacification Program (UPP) and mega-operations in a city where the favela residents have since slavery been considered a violent people to be pacified and controlled. It thus critiques the militarized state security operations in the favelas as one man’s peace, another man’s warzone, noting that these pacification attempts effectively conduct urban warfare against the majority-black favelas to increase a sense of security in the whiter, wealthier areas of Rio de Janeiro. The thesis consequently proposes and discusses favela peace formation as a concept to describe alternative processes in the favelas working to reduce manifest and structural violence: a nonviolent, favela grassroots, locally legitimate peace process, which navigates various blockages and opportunities within and outside the state in its construction of a future with more social justice and less violence. It finds that through community education and engagement; navigation of the judiciary and occupation of certain positions within politics; and constant work to produce knowledge from the favela to change criminalizing narratives, favela peace formation manages to slowly construct an alternative, but limited peace both outside of and within the state. It concludes that due to enormous challenges of state violence, corruption, racism and criminalization of the favelas and their movements, favela peace formation needs support from partners within the Brazilian state, international institutions and/or solidarity movements in order to fulfil their unique potential to construct an alternative, inclusive politics without violence.
Books by Ingri Buer
In: Ferreira, M.A. (eds) Peace and Violence in Brazil. Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham., 2022
This chapter considers peaceful responses to violence by grassroot social actors in the large fav... more This chapter considers peaceful responses to violence by grassroot social actors in the large favela complex Maré in Rio de Janeiro, gathered through eight months fieldwork in the city. Through a critical lens, it considers Brazil as a violent state where the historical and continuous state exclusion, criminalisation and murder of favela residents feed a violent cycle of drug related crime and violence in the favelas. In Maré, local community leaders, activists, and other social actors respond to both violence deriving from exclusion and marginalisation, and state violence from warlike public security operations in their community. This chapter shares their critical perspectives on the state’s marginalisation of vulnerability in Maré and shows how they navigate both direct and structural violence in order to construct their own, alternative peace, through denunciation of state violence, conflict mediation, youth programs, drug rehabilitation, education, knowledge production and more. It proposes and discusses favela peace formation as a concept to describe these alternative processes in the favela that work to reduce manifest and structural violence: a nonviolent, favela grassroot, locally legitimate peace process that navigates various blockages and opportunities within and outside the state in its construction of a future with more social justice and less violence.
Papers by Ingri Buer
Peacebuilding, May 24, 2024
This article reconsiders peace and security from the perspectives of community leaders, educators... more This article reconsiders peace and security from the perspectives of community leaders, educators and activists in favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2019-2020. Through a critical lens, it argues that the urban violence in Rio de Janeiro resembles a form of new wars where the state is a major producer of insecurity. It questions the meaning of peace and top-down pacification processes in a city where the favelas, since their origin, have been considered dangerous areas needing to be pacified and controlled. The article introduces favela peace formation as a concept to describe alternative processes working to reduce the intersectional forms of violence in these communities: non-violent, locally legitimate peace processes working to slowly construct a positive, sustainable peace. To conclude, it discusses how favela peace formation presents a way of imagining peace as 'care' instead of 'order' in response to the state's violent peace as 'control'.
Rethinking peace and violence from the favelas, 2024
This article reconsiders peace and security from the perspectives of community leaders, educators... more This article reconsiders peace and security from the perspectives of community leaders, educators and activists in favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2019-2020. Through a critical lens, it argues that the urban violence in Rio de Janeiro resembles a form of new wars where the state is a major producer of insecurity. It questions the meaning of peace and top-down pacification processes in a city where the favelas, since their origin, have been considered dangerous areas needing to be pacified and controlled. The article introduces favela peace formation as a concept to describe alternative processes working to reduce the intersectional forms of violence in these communities: non-violent, locally legitimate peace processes working to slowly construct a positive, sustainable peace. To conclude, it discusses how favela peace formation presents a way of imagining peace as 'care' instead of 'order' in response to the state's violent peace as 'control'.
This thesis offers a new consideration of peace processes that engage with the needs and challeng... more This thesis offers a new consideration of peace processes that engage with the needs and challenges of marginalized, racialized populations living through urban violence in the expanding peripheries of the postcolonial world. The research draws on the perspectives of favela community leaders, educators and activists on the challenges to their work in reducing violence in their communities, which were gathered during eight months of qualitative fieldwork in and around the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2019-2020. Through a critical lens, the thesis considers Rio de Janeiro as a colonial city where historical and continuous state exclusion, criminalization and murder of favela residents feed a violent cycle of drug-related crime and violence in the favelas. It questions the meaning of peace and top-down public security policies like the Police Pacification Program (UPP) and mega-operations in a city where the favela residents have since slavery been considered a violent people to be pacified and controlled. It thus critiques the militarized state security operations in the favelas as one man’s peace, another man’s warzone, noting that these pacification attempts effectively conduct urban warfare against the majority-black favelas to increase a sense of security in the whiter, wealthier areas of Rio de Janeiro. The thesis consequently proposes and discusses favela peace formation as a concept to describe alternative processes in the favelas working to reduce manifest and structural violence: a nonviolent, favela grassroots, locally legitimate peace process, which navigates various blockages and opportunities within and outside the state in its construction of a future with more social justice and less violence. It finds that through community education and engagement; navigation of the judiciary and occupation of certain positions within politics; and constant work to produce knowledge from the favela to change criminalizing narratives, favela peace formation manages to slowly construct an alternative, but limited peace both outside of and within the state. It concludes that due to enormous challenges of state violence, corruption, racism and criminalization of the favelas and their movements, favela peace formation needs support from partners within the Brazilian state, international institutions and/or solidarity movements in order to fulfil their unique potential to construct an alternative, inclusive politics without violence.
In: Ferreira, M.A. (eds) Peace and Violence in Brazil. Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham., 2022
This chapter considers peaceful responses to violence by grassroot social actors in the large fav... more This chapter considers peaceful responses to violence by grassroot social actors in the large favela complex Maré in Rio de Janeiro, gathered through eight months fieldwork in the city. Through a critical lens, it considers Brazil as a violent state where the historical and continuous state exclusion, criminalisation and murder of favela residents feed a violent cycle of drug related crime and violence in the favelas. In Maré, local community leaders, activists, and other social actors respond to both violence deriving from exclusion and marginalisation, and state violence from warlike public security operations in their community. This chapter shares their critical perspectives on the state’s marginalisation of vulnerability in Maré and shows how they navigate both direct and structural violence in order to construct their own, alternative peace, through denunciation of state violence, conflict mediation, youth programs, drug rehabilitation, education, knowledge production and more. It proposes and discusses favela peace formation as a concept to describe these alternative processes in the favela that work to reduce manifest and structural violence: a nonviolent, favela grassroot, locally legitimate peace process that navigates various blockages and opportunities within and outside the state in its construction of a future with more social justice and less violence.
Peacebuilding, May 24, 2024
This article reconsiders peace and security from the perspectives of community leaders, educators... more This article reconsiders peace and security from the perspectives of community leaders, educators and activists in favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2019-2020. Through a critical lens, it argues that the urban violence in Rio de Janeiro resembles a form of new wars where the state is a major producer of insecurity. It questions the meaning of peace and top-down pacification processes in a city where the favelas, since their origin, have been considered dangerous areas needing to be pacified and controlled. The article introduces favela peace formation as a concept to describe alternative processes working to reduce the intersectional forms of violence in these communities: non-violent, locally legitimate peace processes working to slowly construct a positive, sustainable peace. To conclude, it discusses how favela peace formation presents a way of imagining peace as 'care' instead of 'order' in response to the state's violent peace as 'control'.
Rethinking peace and violence from the favelas, 2024
This article reconsiders peace and security from the perspectives of community leaders, educators... more This article reconsiders peace and security from the perspectives of community leaders, educators and activists in favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2019-2020. Through a critical lens, it argues that the urban violence in Rio de Janeiro resembles a form of new wars where the state is a major producer of insecurity. It questions the meaning of peace and top-down pacification processes in a city where the favelas, since their origin, have been considered dangerous areas needing to be pacified and controlled. The article introduces favela peace formation as a concept to describe alternative processes working to reduce the intersectional forms of violence in these communities: non-violent, locally legitimate peace processes working to slowly construct a positive, sustainable peace. To conclude, it discusses how favela peace formation presents a way of imagining peace as 'care' instead of 'order' in response to the state's violent peace as 'control'.