Jean Daudelin, The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University

Recife is a large and extremely violent metropolis in Brazil’s poor Northeastern region. Much of that violence, according both to authorities and drug market participants, is tied to the workings of a large market for illicit drugs. Building on extensive fieldwork and an original dataset that collates all official drug seizures in the city since 2001, this presentation documents the extent to which policing reinforces dynamics that concentrate violence in the markets catering to the poor, while helping middle-class ones remain remarkable devoid of tension.

This research is realized with José Luiz Ratton (Federal University of Pernambuco), together we published the book "Illegal Markets, Violence and Inequality" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).