Jesus é o dono do lugar: uma análise semiótica da evolução dos murais narcopentecostais

Abstract

This work analyzes the visual communication language in urban space employed by the Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP) faction in Rio de Janeiro, investigating how the phenomenon of narcopentecostalism mobilizes religious signs to legitimize territorial control strategies. Drawing on Charles S. Peirce's semiotic theoretical framework, the analysis focuses on five murals taken from the book "Traficantes evangélicos: quem são e a quem servem os novos bandidos de Deus" [Evangelical Traffickers: Who They Are and Whom the New Bandits of God Serve], by Viviane Costa (2023). The murals were chosen for their visual and textual diversity, exploring different artistic interventions — from a monumental aesthetic inspired by biblical imagery to the appropriation of playful elements and the spontaneous reproduction found in graffiti. The study demonstrates that such interventions are not merely decorative elements, but mechanisms that make up a grammar of power, seeking to reconfigure everyday life and naturalize armed presence through the rhetoric of the sacred. It concludes that the appropriation of pentecostal signs functions as a governance strategy, in which religious language seeks to validate and impose territorial control and codes of conduct.