Contando corpus: espaço, estigma e a geometria da letalidade na Zona Norte de Juiz de Fora

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the spatial distribution and sociological dynamics of lethal violence in the North Zone of Juiz de Fora (MG) between 2013 and 2023, taking completed homicides registered in the Records of Social Defense Events (REDS) as the primary documentary source. It starts from the hypothesis that lethality is not randomly distributed in the territory but is structured by physical barriers and urban segmentations that condition opportunities for violent confrontation and cycles of retaliation. The central objective is to examine how urban morphology and the configuration of territorial axes contribute to the formation of differentiated patterns of homicide occurrence and the construction of police narratives regarding these events. The theoretical framework articulates the concepts of used territory and spatial roughness, the criminology of place, and debates on the selectivity of violence, adopted as analytical instruments to interpret the relationship between space, conflict, and the institutional management of death. The research adopts a mixed, documentary, and quantitative-qualitative approach. The empirical corpus, composed of 180 homicide records (validated via SIM/DATASUS), was submitted to geocoding, spatial analysis, and lexicometric analysis via IRAMUTEQ software. This processing allowed identifying discursive recurrences associated with registered motivations (such as feuds and revenge) and correlating them to the urban environment. The results indicate the existence of three distinct territorial arrangements: Group 1 (Porous Frontier), Group 2 (Enclave/Schism), and Group 3 (Trench/Confinement). Such configurations present marked differences regarding the spatial dispersion of events and the density of bureaucratic narratives. The main contribution of the study consists of demonstrating that the REDS, when analytically treated and spatialized, reveals not only the geography of crime but a “topography of silence,” evidencing how the materiality of the territory affects legal visibility and the quality of state registration of death in the peripheries.