VIOLENCE, WORK AND PERIPHERY: moral conflicts and coexistence in the frontiers between two worlds

Abstract

The analytical perspective that points to a coexistence and a practical-symbolic dispute between different normative regimes on what is morally “correct” in Brazilian urban peripheries is growing. This work is based on the theoretical presupposition that subjects “involved in the world of crime,” faced with criticisms to their attitudes, feel the need to justify themselves. From the multi-methodological research in two districts of the periphery of the municipality of São Paulo, this article approaches two central questions: the self-image projected by subjects that work in activities considered criminal by the law as justification to their criminal activity; and how those who traditionally see themselves as “workers” see those “involved in the world of crime” and their justifications. Associating specific groups qualitatively identified to each of these perspectives on the “world of crime” and its agents, the article contributes with explanatory hypotheses to develop those different coexistence and moral conflict relationships.