Sharing This Walk

“This elegant and rigorously argued book offers a compelling critique of existing depictions of prison life in Brazil and challenges entrenched understandings of 'organised crime.'” — London School of Economics Review of Books

“One of the most insightful works on ‘inner’ Brazilian society.” — Current Anthropology

“This is the best kind of ethnography, in which the experience of the subjects genuinely determines the ideas developed.” — Luso-Brazilian Review

“Karina Biondi’s book has the potential to transform the field of political anthropology well beyond any continental boundary. Recasting standard anthropological paradigms of politics, power, and crime, it is an ethnography of politics and political possibilities. It is also an engaging, even riveting, read. Despite the profound analyses it contains, it is written in such a clear style as to be perfectly accessible and appropriate as a key text for introductory or intermediate courses in anthropology, sociology, Latin American studies, and political science.” — Magnus Course, University of Edinburgh

“Karina Biondi’s bold ethnography . . . gives new meaning to the notion that anthropologists should work from wherever we find ourselves. . . . Biondi invites us to consider the real costs of extreme social inequality in Brazil which, alongside of the inhumanity of the criminal justice system and the de facto civil war between police and the marginal, prefigures circumstances in which an illicit, criminal organization is able to produce far more in the way of conflict management and public security than the official, 'legitimate' state.” — Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology