Stolen Cars: A Journey Through São Paulo's Urban Conflict

Description

Stolen Cars is an innovative ethnography of urban inequalities and violence in São Paulo, Brazil. Organized around the journeys of five stolen cars, each chapter discusses a specific theme, such as the distinctions between violent robbery and the more commercial non-violent theft or the role of national borders interconnecting illegal and legal economies Provides an original theoretical framework for a rarely studied urban and transnational supply chain  Draws from empirical data and a combination of different methodologies to demonstrate mechanisms of urban inequalities and violence reproduction  Highlights how everyday life is entangled with structural urban transformations  Uses an ethnographic narrative to show how urban development produce various forms of illegality and violent crime    STOLEN CARS Contents Notes on Contributors Series Editors’ Preface Introduction A Phone Call A Global Market Theoretical Framework: Normative Regimes Inequalities Methods: About Journeys, Tacking, and Our Collaborative Research Team A Collective Research Team Ethical Issues, Diversity, and Typical Days Chapter Structure 1 Crime, Violence, and Inequality in São Paulo 7 a.m. (Fiat Strada) 10:00 a.m. (Hyundai HB20) 5:15 p.m. (Fiat Palio) 8:40 p.m. (Ford Ka) Urban Violence and Market Regulation 2 State Reaction Police Use of Lethal Force Imprisonment The “Clearing of Public Roads” Political Legitimation 3 Designing the Market Insurance as a Mediator The Automobile Business: From the Streets of São Paulo to the Panama Papers 4 Auctions and Mechanisms Central Circuits: Insurance Companies that Sell at Auctions Some Numbers Marginal Circuits: Car Dealerships and Chop-shops that Buy at Auctions Auctioneers: Economics and Politics 5 Dismantling a Stolen Car Family, Market, Politics Between Extremes: From “Recicla” to “Sheds” Prices and Stratification 6 Regulating an Illegal Market A Brief Chronology of the Dismantling Law Old Practices, New “Political Merchandise”: The Everyday Experience of the Dismantling Law The Political Centrality of Police Officers Police Regulation and Violence 7 Not Criminals, Legislators New Laws, New Markets Illegal Markets, Microfinance, Corporate Philanthropy Action and Reaction Parallel Insurance and the Protection Market The Law that Governs the Market, the Market that Governs the Law 8 Globalization and Its Backroads A Global Market and Its Margins Connecting Markets Urban Reconfigurations North–South Urban Inequalities Conclusions Afterword: Following Cars in a Latin American Metropolis: Inequality, Illegalisms, and Formalization References Index