Men between health and public safety: violence in trauma hospitals

Abstract

A research using ethnographic perspective was carried out in two trauma hospitals in the city of Porto Alegre (RS). We sought to describe the convergences and divergences of practices in the intersection between health and public safety fields regarding men injured in violent conflicts. Multiple social actors’ narratives (professionals in the field of public security and health) were analysed, as well as the multiple paths of patients and their families in the search for health care. The central conceptual operators are inspired by studies on power technologies (Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben), Moral economics (Didier Fassin) and masculinities and violence (Waldemir Rosa). We conclude that the hospital system is firmly linked to the public security system through discursive practices that encourage the production of criminalized masculinities.