A Era das facções no Ceará (2015-2025): interdependência criminal e efeitos sociais da violência

Abstract

This research seeks to understand the dynamics of gangs in Ceará over the last decade (2015-2025) and analyze the networks of criminal interdependence that connect these armed groups of peripheral criminality with the state and big business. In the introduction, I present the sociocultural organization of Ceará's peripheral neighborhoods, which are my main empirical field of work. I then explain the methodological steps of this research: a) a hermeneutic analysis of newspapers, magazines, and other media on the subject; b) a literature review of works on related themes; c) and, most importantly, an ethnography conducted over the last decade in favelas, primarily in Fortaleza. The ethnographic techniques and methods used are participant observation, notes in the field diary, unstructured interviews (spontaneous conversations on sidewalks, bars, small markets, football fields, bodegas, fairs and squares) and semi-structured interviews, based on a basic script, carried out mainly with practitioners of activities such as theft, assault, homicide, drug and arms trafficking, etc., but also occur in smaller numbers with people who do not undertake illegal actions, and who make up the majority of the population of the outskirts of Ceará. There are 28 recorded interviews – 80% of them with perpetrators of various crimes – resulting in over 50 hours of recordings. For this endeavor, I spent hundreds of days in the field. The first part of this work, which comprises chapters 1 to 4, delves deeply into the theory of criminal interdependence, systematically explaining the theoretical proposition – empirically demonstrated by data obtained in the field, through journalistic sources, and related scientific literature – of an interdependent network of criminal activities, which connects impoverished and white-collar crime under unequal conditions of power. The second part of the work, which comprises chapters 5 and 6, delves into the actions and arrangements of peripheral armed groups over the last decade in Ceará (2015-2025), analyzing the changes in configuration and dynamism of these arrangements from their “arrival” in the state to the present.