Vidas decretadas à morte: a demarcação do corpo feminino em corpo-território nas dinâmicas de violência urbana no Piauí

Abstract

This thesis aims to broaden the understanding of the phenomenon of the murder of adolescent and young women within the dynamics of urban criminality in the state of Piauí, constantly associated with disputes between factional groups. Faced with this issue, it seeks to answer the following central questions: in what ways do the homicides of women in the context of factional disputes in Piauí indicate an updating of capitalist exploitation over female bodies and collectivities? And how is this updating related to a new use and territorial demarcation of the female body amid a period marked by the strengthening of feminist struggles and the crisis of capital? To address this problem, its general objective was to understand the production and organization of lethal violence against adolescent and young women within factional dynamics in Piauí through the analysis of contemporary warlike formats and the historical capitalist exploitation of women. Specifically, it discusses: the relationship between the intensification of factional occupation in the territory of Piauí and the elements present in violent practices against female bodies; problematizes the category of femicide in articulation with the process of femigenocide; seeks to identify the social, economic, and political processes involved in manifestations of violence against women; and to understand how changes in territorial paradigms and disputes among factional groups have been configuring a new role for the female body. The study is guided by an intersectional research perspective and is based on the concept of intersectionality as a methodological and analytical tool, considering social markers of difference as analytical elements of this complex reality. As a theoretical foundation, it articulates the analysis of violence data in Brazil and in Piauí with discussions advanced by feminist authors, as well as the debates proposed by Rita Segato and Silvia Federici in order to think about the relationship between the exploitation of the female body and the development of capitalism. As methodological tools, it employs reports, field journals, and narrative interviews, all analyzed in light of Patricia Hill Collins’ contributions regarding the concepts of intersectionality and the matrix of domination. The dissertation presents interviews with four women residents from the outskirts of Teresina who experience and are affected by the impacts of disputes between factional groups and by threats directed at female existences and collectivities. Interwoven with this, it also presents the modulations of the researcher-woman-body within the researched contexts and the phenomenon under study. The concepts of “envolvida” (“involved woman”), “decretação” (“death sentence/order”), and “tribunais” (“courts”) are employed to problematize narratives surrounding women victims of urban violence as an alternative to hegemonic conceptions, especially those produced by media and police agents. It is argued that the female body, historically subjected to a continuum of violence, has been and continues to be the target of exploitation and systematic control, particularly during periods of crisis and maintenance of capital and territorial disputes. Therefore, it is maintained that contemporary formats of violence, imposed norms and regulations, and territorial paradigms have configured the female body as a body-territory, but also as a body that produces resistance through the struggles and relations of solidarity forged in the outskirts of Piauí.