São Paulo’s Metropolitan Municipal Civilian Guard in Times of Military and War Expansion

This chapter examines the municipal dimension in the challenges and interpretations regarding the concept of “public security” in Brazil. Based on extensive ethnographic work inside a Municipal Civilian Guard unit, the chapter describes and analyzes the complex construction of a Civilian Guard identity imbued with a civil armor and yet militarized. In times of hyper-militarization, the study analyzes the contemporary construction and dispute of the meaning of what is to be a “guard.” It exposes how a military and bellicose universe is inserted into a civilian institution through a political culture among “brothers in uniform.” Through fears widespread by the social and political spectrum, a military and warlike political culture is fueled in a capillary and almost imperceptible way since the beginning of the 2000s.