Sociologies (May 2017)
Des émotions aux revendications
Abstract
How do the mothers of victims of police violence (those who were killed or disappeared in their hands) become engaged in the political and moral arena to denounce the employment of illegitimate force, which nonetheless is widely supported in public debate in Rio de Janeiro? The goal of this article is to describe the role and dynamics of emotions in the public experience of three mothers of victims of violence. They participated in a group interview as part of a broader inquiry aiming to analyze the effects of criminality on sociability in the slums (favelas) of Rio de Janeiro. In the case of these mothers, love for their offspring and the suffering caused by their loss are they two main registers of emotions through which I analyze a process of publicization that does not presume effort of de-singularization and the skills they activate in order to get a hold of public attention.
