Creating (Il)legal Markets: An Ethnography of the Insurance Market in Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of the insurance market in the conformation of state regulations, responsible for the creation of frontiers between legal and illegal practices in Brazil, with a focus on car insurance as well as the industry agents’ commitment to the creation of laws and the competition for new market niches. The aim of this study is to explore how the collabora-tion between public and private players constitute the governing rules of illegal and informal markets by analyzing two empirical cases: The approval of the Dismantling Act, whose goal is to regulate car parts trade and curb car theft, and the attempts to criminalize vehicle protection products, known as pirated or parallel insurance (seguro pirata or seguro paralelo). The article showcases partial findings from ongoing research based on three different methodologies, namely: i) Multi-sited ethnography carried out in insurance-related events, entities, and com-panies; ii) Compilation and analysis of ancillary materials, such as news articles, official docu-ments, and industry-specific documentation; iii) Interviews with insurance brokers and insurers’ representatives, directors, and employees.