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Cities of God Under Occupation: Settler Colonial Practices and Pacification in The Favelas of Rio De Janeiro and The Occupied Palestinian Territories

The 2002 film ‘City of God’ tells an anecdotal story of violence in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and is a reminder that the societies we tend to take for granted can actually be a luxury. The film portrays the daily life of the peripheries of Rio and its relation with drug trafficking, crime, and...

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Main Author: Pimenta da Silva, Amanda
Format: Thesis
Published: AUC Knowledge Fountain 2022
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access_status_str Open Access
author Pimenta da Silva, Amanda
author_browse Pimenta da Silva, Amanda
author_facet Pimenta da Silva, Amanda
author_sort Pimenta da Silva, Amanda
collection Thesis
description The 2002 film ‘City of God’ tells an anecdotal story of violence in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and is a reminder that the societies we tend to take for granted can actually be a luxury. The film portrays the daily life of the peripheries of Rio and its relation with drug trafficking, crime, and poverty, and how it has deteriorated into a war zone so dangerous that anyone risk being shot to death. Thousands of miles away from the Brazilian slums there is another so-called city of God, or the city chosen by God to be the home’s capital of the chosen ones, which is believed by some to be the ‘Land of Israel’, and nowadays illegally occupies much of Palestinian territories. The occupied areas of Palestine – Gaza and the West Bank – similarly endure daily violent life with militarization and targeted killings policies. For the last decades, there has been a state of permanent conflict in both situations, in which the government wields the law in order to justify its construction of a narrative of warfare, based primarily in ‘the name of security’. This paper identifies policies of governance developed by the narratives of peace and security, and that is heavily applied in both cases, by drawing on the chore mechanism that sustain sovereignty in modern liberal democracies: its right to occupy and kill, which can be widely accepted, or at least not condemned, in circumstances of war. The central argument in this paper is that the existence of a metaphorical war – against terror or drugs – is necessary in both cases for the State to put forward a plan of social control and domination, which is carefully constructed within the legal order.
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institution American University in Cairo (Egypt)
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license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from AUC Knowledge Fountain — bepress
publishDate 2022
publishDateRange 2022
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spelling oai:fount.aucegypt.edu:etds-2931 Cities of God Under Occupation: Settler Colonial Practices and Pacification in The Favelas of Rio De Janeiro and The Occupied Palestinian Territories Pimenta da Silva, Amanda The 2002 film ‘City of God’ tells an anecdotal story of violence in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and is a reminder that the societies we tend to take for granted can actually be a luxury. The film portrays the daily life of the peripheries of Rio and its relation with drug trafficking, crime, and poverty, and how it has deteriorated into a war zone so dangerous that anyone risk being shot to death. Thousands of miles away from the Brazilian slums there is another so-called city of God, or the city chosen by God to be the home’s capital of the chosen ones, which is believed by some to be the ‘Land of Israel’, and nowadays illegally occupies much of Palestinian territories. The occupied areas of Palestine – Gaza and the West Bank – similarly endure daily violent life with militarization and targeted killings policies. For the last decades, there has been a state of permanent conflict in both situations, in which the government wields the law in order to justify its construction of a narrative of warfare, based primarily in ‘the name of security’. This paper identifies policies of governance developed by the narratives of peace and security, and that is heavily applied in both cases, by drawing on the chore mechanism that sustain sovereignty in modern liberal democracies: its right to occupy and kill, which can be widely accepted, or at least not condemned, in circumstances of war. The central argument in this paper is that the existence of a metaphorical war – against terror or drugs – is necessary in both cases for the State to put forward a plan of social control and domination, which is carefully constructed within the legal order. 2022-07-01T07:00:00Z thesis application/pdf https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/1904 https://fount.aucegypt.edu/context/etds/article/2931/viewcontent/amanda_pimenta_da_silva_thesis.pdf Theses and Dissertations AUC Knowledge Fountain Pacification; Settler Colonialism; Necropolitics; Favelas; Palestine. Human Rights Law International Humanitarian Law International Law International Relations Latin American History Legal Legal Theory Other Sociology
spellingShingle Pacification; Settler Colonialism; Necropolitics; Favelas; Palestine.
Human Rights Law
International Humanitarian Law
International Law
International Relations
Latin American History
Legal
Legal Theory
Other Sociology
Pimenta da Silva, Amanda
Cities of God Under Occupation: Settler Colonial Practices and Pacification in The Favelas of Rio De Janeiro and The Occupied Palestinian Territories
title Cities of God Under Occupation: Settler Colonial Practices and Pacification in The Favelas of Rio De Janeiro and The Occupied Palestinian Territories
title_full Cities of God Under Occupation: Settler Colonial Practices and Pacification in The Favelas of Rio De Janeiro and The Occupied Palestinian Territories
title_fullStr Cities of God Under Occupation: Settler Colonial Practices and Pacification in The Favelas of Rio De Janeiro and The Occupied Palestinian Territories
title_full_unstemmed Cities of God Under Occupation: Settler Colonial Practices and Pacification in The Favelas of Rio De Janeiro and The Occupied Palestinian Territories
title_short Cities of God Under Occupation: Settler Colonial Practices and Pacification in The Favelas of Rio De Janeiro and The Occupied Palestinian Territories
title_sort cities of god under occupation settler colonial practices and pacification in the favelas of rio de janeiro and the occupied palestinian territories
topic Pacification; Settler Colonialism; Necropolitics; Favelas; Palestine.
Human Rights Law
International Humanitarian Law
International Law
International Relations
Latin American History
Legal
Legal Theory
Other Sociology
url https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/1904
https://fount.aucegypt.edu/context/etds/article/2931/viewcontent/amanda_pimenta_da_silva_thesis.pdf
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