Micropolitics in a Caracas Barrio: The Political Survival Strategies of Mothers in a Context of Armed Violence

Abstract

Venezuela has one of the highest rates of homicide in the Americas. Those who are dying are mostly men, and most are shot. Based on ethnographic research in poor, urban neighborhoods in Caracas, where guns are abundant and the state is absent, this article focuses on the repertoire of responses of mothers of armed young men toward violence. How are mothers responding to meet the extreme challenges of safeguarding the survival of their families? In what ways do they participate in the containment but also in the dissemination of violence? We describe the safeguarding practices deployed by women, which we interpret as political survival strategies. Drawing on women's narratives, we have identified four strategies that contribute differently to the containment and reproduction of violence: submission and taking refuge, collaborating, resisting, and negotiating or forging of pacts. Venezuela tiene una de las tasas de homicidio más altas de América. La mayoría de las víctimas son hombres que han recibido disparos. Basado en una investigación etnográfica en barrios pobres caraqueños, donde hay abundancia de armas y ausencia del Estado, este artículo se enfoca en el repertorio de respuestas a la violencia de madres de hombres jóvenes armados. ¿Cómo responden las madres a los desafíos extremos de cuidar y procurar la sobrevivencia de sus familias? ¿De qué maneras participan tanto para contener la violencia como para estimularla? Describimos las prácticas de salvaguarda utilizadas por las mujeres que interpretamos como estrategias políticas de sobrevivencia. Utilizando las narrativas de las mujeres hemos identificado cuatro estrategias que contribuyen de manera distinta a la contención ya la reproducción de la violencia: someterse y refugiarse, colaborar, resistir y negociar o forjar pactos. Caracas, the city that we inhabit, has been reported to be the "world's most violent city. 1 People here live with intense fear, constantly seeing themselves as potential victims (Rotker 2000). Some of the particularities of this violence are, on the one hand, a sharp increase over the past fifteen years in violent crimes, especially homicides, and on the other hand, the fact that these deaths resulting from armed confrontations between men and between men and police officers take place mostly in the poor barrios. 2 Amid this bleak scenario we learned of a remarkable case in which the mothers of victims brokered a ceasefire. This negotiation took place in the community of Carache, a barrio near the Miraflores Presidential Palace in the center of Caracas, after the murder of a young man by another young male from a rival area 1 Venezuela Investigative Unit (January 27, 2106). Caracas World's Most Violent City: Report. Insight Crime. http://www .insightcrime.org/news-briefs/caracas-most-violent-city-in-the-world-2015-report. 2 Caracas, like other Latin American cities, has notorious divisions. Barrios are areas, spaces of self-construction and daily struggles, where those excluded from urban areas engage to achieve better life condition...

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