Navigating Violence: Fear and Everyday Life in Colombia and Mexico

Abstract

Violence and insecurity are often read as totalising narratives of communities in parts of Latin America, flattening the complexity of everyday life and the responses of occupants who suffer from fear. In this article we draw on ethnographic research undertaken in los Altos de Cazucá in Colombia and in San Luis Potosí in Mexico. While both sites are distinct locations with different historic, economic, social and political contexts they share features of communities affected by violence and insecurity: distrust of institutions of the state; rationalisations for managing violence in daily life; and narratives of fear that appear woven through the fabric of conversations. However, fear and violence are not all-encompassing experiences and individuals in both these communities describe practices of navigation of violence that draw on positive communal experiences. This article explores how, in these communities where violence comes to be expected but never normalised, people navigate their everyday lives. KeywordsViolence; social navigation; Colombia; Mexico; insecurity; everyday life. Please cite this article as:

Militarized everyday lives, logics and responses among children and youth in a violent community in urban Brazil

“…Goldstein, 2003; Perlman, 2010; Soares et al, 2005), and for the people affected by it, the ever-present risk of violence saturates everyday routines and social interactions (Wilding, 2014). However, Berents and Ten Have (2017) criticize common portrayals of such places as mere sites of despair and danger, and representations of the residents as nothing more than passive victims. This holds particularly true for the youngest residents, who are commonly rendered passive in discussions about the violence surrounding them (Berents, 2015).…”

“…Berents (2015) detects young people’s resilience to everyday violence in Colombia, being highly competent and proactive in finding ways of manoeuvring dangerous environments. Berents and Ten Have (2017), drawing on Vigh’s work, describe Colombian and Mexican youth as skilled navigators in the midst of violence and insecurity. They argue that the concept of navigation challenges the passive construction implied by ‘coping’ and instead recognizes agency and capacity.…”

“…Although these youths represent, by far, the minority of young people who come of age in poor urban communities, much less attention has been paid to how their non-involved peers are affected by the drug trade, as they are often muted in discussions about the violence that affects them (Berents, 2015). The few studies that excavate the micro-dynamics of violence and insecurities in the lives of non-involved children and young people in Latin America tend to focus on the ways in which they navigate hostile waters, noting their coping strategies (Winton, 2005), resilience and competence (Berents, 2015), and safety tactics (Berents and Ten Have, 2017). However, there is a need to connect everyday experiences of young people and the wider geopolitical discourses to reveal how militarist rationalities and manifestations affect their lives (Basham, 2011).…”

Perceptions and Realities of Violence in Medellín, Colombia

“…To circumvent the unreliability of homicide and crime statistics, researchers from a range of fields have used different qualitative methodologies to provide insights into how residents understand violence and its effect on their daily lives (Abello-Colak and Pearce 2015; Auyero, Burbano and Fernanda Berti 2013; Baird 2012; Berents and ten Have 2017;McCord 2003;Moser 2004;Moser and McIlwaine 2004;Orjuela 2010;Winton 2004). For example, victimisation surveys have been used in criminology since at least the 1990s (see Coleman and Moynihan 1996;Kesteren, Dijk and Mayhew 2013).…”

The Colombian National Police and the Politics of Crime Control Evaluations

“…Like many police forces in the Global South, the Colombian National Police is centralised and administered as a branch within the Ministry of Defence. The MNVCC offers a prescriptive framework that provides flexibility for a police force with significant variation in service needs across rural and metropolitan areas, and across distinctive regions, topographies, institutional arrangements and governance challenges (see Berents and Have 2017;Gómez et al 2017;Higginbottom 2008;Moncada 2010;Román-Muñoz 2012;Ruiz-Vasquez and Páez 2012;Palacios 2006). The core focus of the present study is to explain a core conflict surrounding the effectiveness of the MNVCC.…”