Ecologies of violence in urban peripheries during multispecies health emergencies

Abstract

Violence is a health problem and a determinant of health emergencies, with structural dimensions going beyond interpersonal physical aggression. In the present text, we outline the ecologies of violence and relate them to Covid-19 pandemic experiences in a favela of São Paulo city, taking a multispecies health perspective. We show how imposed precariousness, exploitation, persecution, territorial expulsions, incarceration practices, and household aggressions harm peripheral beings, humans and other-than-humans, finding in health emergencies the possibility of elevating themselves to the condition of a syndemic of violences. This has happened in the Covid-19 pandemic, in recent epidemics, and it is expected to happen in the next health emergency. Through de ecologies of violence, we hope to give more visibility to the entanglement that frustrates prevention and protection efforts in the face of health emergencies. Entanglement between marginalizing apparatuses, modalities of violence, and health emergencies, materialized in multispecies collectives.