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Violent masculinities
Author(s) -
SALEM TOMAS,
LARKINS ERIKA ROBB
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1111/amet.13005
Subject(s) - masculinity , authoritarianism , sociology , politics , criminology , appeal , sexual violence , salience (neuroscience) , gender studies , state (computer science) , political science , law , democracy , psychology , algorithm , cognitive psychology , computer science
Historically, policing in Rio de Janeiro has been shaped by the equation of racialized violence and masculinity. Attempts to reform the police have paradoxically drawn on forms of male violence that are centered on the rational and professional use of force and on “softer” practices, such as dialogue and collaboration, symbolically coded as feminine. The failure of police reform reflects the cultural salience of understandings of masculinity centered around violence within the police, historical patterns of policing in Rio, and political actors’ strategic cultivation of male violence. Through Rio de Janeiro's failed attempt at police reform, we theorize the relation between racialized state violence, authoritarian political projects, and transgressive forms of male violence, arguing that an important appeal of authoritarianism lies in its promise to carve out a space for performing what we call wild masculinity . [ masculinity , race , police , violence , gender , politics , favela , Rio de Janeiro , Brazil ]