Matadores de aluguel: códigos e mediações na rota de uma pesquisa

Abstract

This work focus on an analysis of the hired killer or gunman, a personality within Brazilian society who has his origin in the agrarian social environment and the Northeastern region, highlighting how one perceives social codes of honor and vengeance. The character that is shown in this article is the “farreaching arm”, the “front-line author” of powerinspired crimes, contracted crimes or gunman’s crimes. In the last decades, gunmen have lost their distinctive phenomenological trait by leaving their rural environment and establishing themselves in the urban scenario. One important aspect related to hired killers is that there isn’t just one trait that explains their behavior (they kill theirs and others’ enemies alike), as there isn’t a single explanation for their unlawful activities. Thus, if those particularities do not help one reaching hasty formal conclusions on the one hand, on the other hand they set up the phenomenon within a complex and rich network of social values.