Beyond agency and passivity: Situating a gendered articulation of urban violence in Brazil and El Salvador

Abstract

This paper argues for a situated politics of women’s agency in enduring intimate partner violence (IPV) in contexts of extreme urban violence. We contend that interrogating agency as dynamic and lived facilitates an acknowledgement of the multi-scalar entanglements of violence across urban spaces. Recognising the complexities in human agency holds the potential for a radical gendered urban politics to emerge whereby people are neither simplistically victims nor pawns of violent processes, but located within dynamic ‘webs of social relations’ (Cumbers A, Helms G and Swanson K (2010) Class, agency and resistance in the old industrial city. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 42(1): 54). Drawing on feminist theory, our conceptualisation of agency serves as a lens through which we can examine the dynamic and gendered nature of urban violence as rooted in multiple social relations (McNay L (2010) Feminism and post-identity politics: The problem of agency. Constellations 17(4): 512–525). The paper draws on research in the urban peripheries of Rio de Janiero and San Salvador.

Everyday Security Practices in Gang-Controlled Neighborhoods in San Salvador

“…Th erefore, only limited attention was paid to the variety of personal experiences of (in) security, both in terms of interpretation and in relation to the position of residents in the neighborhood (Balzacq et al 2010;Hilgers and MacDonald 2017: 1;Pengalese 2014;Van der Borgh 2019: 9). Th e experiences can strongly diff er, and relevant factors such as the particular locations or zones in neighborhoods (more unstable versus more stable ones), socioeconomic position, and age and gender also appear to be important factors explaining whether or how threats are experienced (Hilgers and Macdonald 2017;Hume and Wilding 2020).…”

“…Th ere is a growing interest in the ways in which local residents deal with threats and uncertainties (Arias 2019;Hume and Wilding 2020;Kloppe Santamaría and Abello Colak 2019;Moncada 2019). Th e poor generally have less capacity to "modify urban infrastructure to shield themselves" (Deckard and Auyero 2022: 2.11), but they do have agency to deal with threats and to navigate local insecurities (Berents and Ten Have 2017).…”

(En)gendering post-conflict agency: Women’s experiences of the ‘local’ in Sierra Leone

“…Agency, then, is never fully active, constrained, passive or transformative. Rather, agency is fluid and analysed here ‘ within the context in which women are able to act’ (Hume and Wilding, 2019: 253, their emphasis) in order to emphasize the different, individual and highly personal ways in which females experience post-conflict programs. Drawing on research with Fambul Tok, this article links different forms of agency to deconstruct homogenous narratives of women.…”

“…Further, those who felt a sense of obligation to speak publicly in order to ‘enact the program correctly’ were not necessarily constrained but rather made active choices with the knowledge and hope of desired assistance. Thus, these diverse engagements and perspectives all involve mobilizing different types of agency ‘within the contexts in which they are able to act’ (Hume and Wilding, 2019), ultimately resulting in a wide range of experiences and outcomes.…”

Strategic Submission to Rape is not Consent: Sexual Violence in the Colombian Armed Conflict

“…Other academic literature has drawn attention to tiny and unique forms of agency exerted in even the most restricted wartime circumstances (Baines, 2015; Rudling, 2019; Utas, 2005). This literature has also called for scholars to expand their consideration of civilian agency in violent milieus and to think specifically about how gender shapes different possibilities for action and behavior (Baines, 2015; Hume & Wilding, 2020; Krause, 2019; Utas, 2005). Victims are diverse individuals from a variety of backgrounds who have experienced and responded to violence in diverse ways and failing to take their diversity into account ultimately limits our broader understanding of war and conflict (Krystalli, 2021; Rudling, 2019).…”