Lucia: Testimonies Of A Brazilian

by Robert Gay

Overview

Favelas, or shantytowns, are where cocaine is mainly sold in Rio de Janeiro. There are some six hundred favelas in the city, and most of them are controlled by well-organized and heavily armed drug gangs. The struggle for the massive profits from this drug trade has resulted in what are increasingly violent and deadly confrontations between rival drug gangs and a corrupt and brutal police force, that have transformed parts of the city into a war-zone. Lucia tells the story of one woman who was once intimately involved with drug gang life in Rio throughout the 1990s. Through a series of conversations with the author, Lucia describes conditions of poverty, violence, and injustice that are simply unimaginable to outsiders. In doing so, she explains why women like her become involved with drugs and gangs, and why this situation is unlikely to change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592133406
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	06/20/2012
Series:	Voices of Latin American Life
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Robert Gay is Chair of the Department of Sociology at Connecticut College. He is the author of Popular Organization and Democracy in Rio De Janeiro: A Tale of Two Favelas (Temple).

Table of Contents

ForewordAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Getting In Lucia's House2. Rogério Drug Gangs3. Marcos Police4. Bruno Prison5. School Education6. Work Economy7. Born Again Religion8. Getting Out Last CallEpilogueNotesGlossaryBibliographyIndex

What People are Saying About This

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro

Rio de Janeiro is under siege. The poor communities and the favelas on the hills are submitted to a mix of terror and populism by the drug traffickers. The affluent classes live under fear of organized crime. Most of the police are involved in corruption and lethal violence. Despite this overwhelming presence, life in the favelas is not well known. Robert Gay has written a rigorous, but at the same time compassionate, study of the complex strategies for survival in those surroundings. In this outstanding book we are able to hear, through Lucia, the voice of those brave (and neglected) survivors.