Criminalising encounters: MINUSTAH as a laboratory for armed humanitarian pacification

Abstract

This article assesses the nexus of militarised humanitarian work, governance and violence in the context of the ‘Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti’ (MINUSTAH). It draws on empirical fieldwork in Port-au-Prince and Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s leading role in this UN mission reinforces the country’s ambitions as an emergent economic and political power on a global stage. Brazilian military and civilian actors base their claim of being uniquely qualified for urban ‘pacification’ efforts on a supposedly deeper cultural sensitivity which they assert to have developed in everyday civil–military encounters in the criminalised peripheries of Brazilian cities. By analysing the conflicting narratives in which the military, police and citizens negotiate these encounters, we argue that they allow for a revealing of the contested and often violent forms in which peace enforcement occurs.