A produção socioespacial dos territórios de violência urbana na cidade de Sobral/CE

Abstract

Violence has become an essentially spatial problem nowadays, not only by the evident concentration of violent crimes in certain urban areas, but by the consequences it generates in the way of occupying and living in cities. In this scenario, we seek to understand the aspects related to the socio-spatial formation of what can be called "territory of violence". In the expectation of overcoming the risks of reductionist geographical determinisms, three categories of analysis are considered as the guiding thread of critical reflection: socio-spatial segregation, the territorialization of violence and the right to the city. The theoretical research directs its focus to violence properly related to the dynamics of life in cities, so the notion of production of urban space becomes fundamental, since the formation of the most vulnerable territories to violence is substantially based and articulated with the unequal and exclusionary processes of reproduction of social relations in space. The methodological approach, exploratory-descriptive, makes use of various procedures of data collection and analysis of information, associating the theoretical reviewanalysis and interviews to an empirical investigation of two neighborhoods subject to violence in the city of Sobral/Brazil. The results obtained point to the high rates of socio-spatial vulnerability associated with the risk of violence, such as the precariousness of housing, the absence of public school dropout, the fragility of the urban mobility system and the scarcity of quality public spaces. Thus, the framework of socio-spatial segregation and denial of the right to the city is aggravated by the appropriation of criminal organizations, that find in these territories the appropriate ecosystem for the development of recruitment strategies for people who experience situations of violation of rights and institutional negligence.