From Stolen to Second Hand Global Cars: Inequalites and Violence Reproduction

Stolen cars can be illegally dismantled, resold and trafficked to other countries, but they can also be recovered, documented and driven legally. The article describes and analyses a value chain for stolen vehicles, which starts in North America and reaches West Africa, passing through dismantling in Dubai. Governance, mobility, comparison and legal-illegal borders appear as intermediary categories that allow us to verify how this value chain connects to other legal and illegal markets, and to argue for the reproduction mechanisms of persistent inequalities. The article is based on sociological and collective field research carried out between 2020 and 2024 within the framework of the Globalcar project, coordinated between Brazil and France. I use Charles Tilly's political sociology to think about the ways in which lasting urban inequalities are reproduced, from the level of action to the level of structure, mediated by the car market and its parts.