Metamorphosing the "node": forms of power-knowledge, control and subjection around the figure of "crack user" in São Paulo
This thesys to analyse the version of a junkie (Portuguese: “nóia”) as a discursive category as well as the links embedded in this discourse. These discourses about power/truth bear knowledge that legitimizes orders of violence against these individuals. The aim is to unterstand how corporality developped in the city of São Paulo and what the emergence of crack at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s influenced life considering the background history of four individuals. The paper is based on the fact that the narrative construction of the “nóia” is sociological and historical as well as a result of changes in discourses and actions. Therefore, it is not unrelated to global logics of controle and domination of the population in the process of subjectification. There are also other areas that support this discursive production, i.e., drug trafficking, Brazilian rap music and the press. Based on interviews, rap lyrics, press articles, observation and etnographic reports, the paper seeks to understand the inflections and changes that happened in the outskirts of São Paulo City during that period and how they resulted in the emergence of the “nóia”. These discourses turned the body of the “nóia” into a body of permanent conflict.