Why drug seizures matter: Discriminatory policing and violence on Brazil's drug markets

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

DATE: 24 January 2020

ACTIVITY: CEDLA LECTURE

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).

Jean Daudelin is Associate Professor at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, in Ottawa, where he teaches on international development and conflict, and a research fellow at the Crime and Public Security Lab (NEPS) of the Federal University of Pernambuco, in Brazil. A specialist of Latin America, he researches informal markets, drug violence and public security in the Americas, with a particular focus on Brazil