“You don’t slip up with the Bonde”: Criminal Governance as a hybrid arrangement of power and the production of order in the peripheries of the Greater São Luís Island – MA

Abstract

The article analyzes the activities of the Bonde dos 40 (B40) faction in the peripheries of Greater São Luís Island (Maranhão, Brazil), exploring how this group, which originated within the prison system, consolidated itself as an instance of criminal governance capable of mediating conflicts, imposing norms, and enforcing sanctions. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2019 and 2025, the study presents empirical scenes that reveal both the coercive and violent dimensions of its actions, as well as practices of recognition, negotiation, and agreement that sustain and legitimize the factional order in everyday life. Using the concept of criminal governance, the text argues that B40 operates a hybrid normative system, articulating its own codes of conduct, such as the notion of vacilo, with local dynamics of belonging and social control. This situated and relational form of power reorganizes the social and symbolic space of the peripheries, straining the boundaries between legality/illegality, state/non-state, and violence/order. By demonstrating that B40’s presence cannot be reduced to state absence or weakness, but rather composes complex arrangements of co-presence, cooperation, and disputes over sovereignty, the study contributes to understanding how different forms of authority coexist and overlap in urban margins.