Scientific torture'? Scientism and the marks of torture inside a police station in Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Bibliographic Data

ID2489162
AuthorsPedro Fermín Maguire (0000-0002-4739-7979, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, corresponding author), Denise Neves Batista Costa (0000-0002-3853-2286, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais)
Year2018
Volume15
Issue3
Publication date2018-12-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueVibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1809-4341 • E-ISSN: 1809-4341
PublisherFapUNIFESP (SciELO) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1590/1809-43412018v15n3d510
OpenAlexW2902596911
SCIELO_PIDS1809-43412018000300510
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited7

The aim of this article is to examine several architectural marks registered during 2013-2015 at the police station that once housed the DOPS, the headquarters of Brazil's dictatorial police in the city of Belo Horizonte. To understand their importance as archaeological findings, we propose an analysis of 'scientific torture'. We will examine the phrase's genealogy and the practices associated with it in the second half of the twentieth century. While practiced by a number of institutions from several countries, it was the CIA that created an entire research program to organize bodies of knowledge about torture practices, producing now declassified documents about 'interrogation techniques'. First, we will discuss some of the materialized practices developed as a result of those efforts. Second, we will discuss how these practices are reflected in the Kubark interrogation manual, edited by the CIA in 1963, particularly in what pertains to its more architectural recommendations. Finally, we will analyze the building which once housed the DOPS, to expose the notable congruencies between its architectural recommendations and the marks recorded at the DOPS building

Criminology · Human rights · Interrogation · Political science · Sociology · Torture · Law · Torture, Ethics, and Law

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