Synopses & Reviews
In Outlawed, Daniel M. Goldstein reveals how indigenous residents of marginal neighborhoods in Cochabamba, Bolivia, struggle to balance security with rights. Feeling abandoned to the crime and violence that grip their communities, they sometimes turn to vigilante practices, including lynching, to apprehend and punish suspected criminals. Goldstein describes those in this precarious position as andquot;outlawedandquot;: not protected from crime by the law but forced to comply with legal measures in other areas of their lives, their solutions to protection criminalized while their needs for security are ignored. He chronicles the complications of the government's attempts to provide greater rights to indigenous peoples, including a new constitution that recognizes andquot;community justice.andquot; He also examines how state definitions of indigeneity ignore the existence of marginal neighborhoods, continuing long-standing exclusionary practices. The insecurity felt by the impoverished residents of Cochabambaandmdash;and, more broadly, by the urban poor throughout Bolivia and Latin Americaandmdash;remains. Outlawed illuminates the complex interconnections between differing definitions of security and human rights at the local, national, and global levels.
Review
andquot;In Outlawed, Daniel M. Goldstein tackles one of the most critical issues confronting Latin America today, namely, the insecurity experienced by numerous citizens who fear falling victim to theft, robbery, burglary, assault, rape, or homicide as they go about their daily lives. He proceeds in a smart way, by examining the Bolivian state's representations of violence, Bolivian citizens' experiences in a local neighborhood, and the notions of community justice and illegitimate violence that circulate locally, nationally, and internationally.andquot;andmdash;Susan Bibler Coutin, author of Nations of Emigrants: Shifting Boundaries of Citizenship in El Salvador and the United States
Review
andquot;This is a terrific work, lively and engaging. It adds to the anthropological understanding of the law in practice in several ways. First, the book demonstrates that while the state does not protect those in Cochabamba's poor urban settlements from crime, it is present in their lives as a set of onerous bureaucratic and legal requirements. Second, it challenges legal pluralist arguments that there is an entirely separate legality operating in city slums. It reveals the legal systems of the urban poor not as entirely separate from the state but as fractured conjunctures of state and other legalities. Third, the book emphasizes the creative waysandmdash;from vigilantism to selective reliance on state services and local leadersandmdash;that marginalized communities handle legal problems. Taken together, its arguments are a major contribution to the field.andquot;andmdash;Sally Engle Merry, author of Gender Violence: A Cultural Perspective
Review
andldquo;Daniel Goldstein has written an elaborate and rich ethnography of the andlsquo;present absenceandrsquo; of the Bolivian state in a marginal barrio in the city of Cochabamba...In many ways, Goldsteinandrsquo;s book is a testimony to ethnography at its best: it elucidates large critical issues by way of meticulous attention to local contexts and dynamics.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;[A]stute and usefulandhellip;.[T]his book provides a thought-provoking examination of human rights, fear of crime, and the ways in which people create new forms of justice. Given that it addresses fear of and daily responses to crime, a central concern of many Latin Americans today, this book will be widely read by anthropologists as well as those interested in Latin America, inequality, and andquot;post-neoliberalism.andquot; It should also be adopted in courses on criminal justice and inequality.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Outlawedpresents a theoretical tour de force that draws the reader into complicating and questioning long-standing tropes of urban/rural, indigenous/civilized, and neoliberal/ communal that clearly continue to affect governmentality and everyday experiences of citizenship in contemporary Bolivia. As such, it is a must-read for scholars of the Andes, of neoliberal citizenship in all its manifestations, andandmdash;more importantlyandmdash;for anyone concerned with the renewed scrutiny of security in the global south.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Although Outlawed is an ethnography based on fieldwork with participant observation, traditional ethnographic description occupies only about forty percent of the text. The remainder is roughly forty percent theory and engagement with other literature, and twenty percent discussion of the personal role of the anthropologist. Each of the three elements contributes something to make Outlawed a valuableandhellip; work.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;Outlawed will undoubtedly inspire important debates on the place of and#39;engaged anthropologyand#39; in our discipline, while inadvertently showing that our scholarly production is often not as collaborative as our activism.andquot;
Review
andldquo;Through compelling, sensitive, and lyrically written ethnographic analyses, Goldstein takes up a number of key problems for contemporary anthropology. . . . After Outlawed, it is no longer possible to view the role of human rights as a dominant mode of contemporary world-making in the same way.andrdquo;
Review
“Sweeping and compelling, John Gledhill takes us inside the wars that states wage on inconvenient populations. The result is a powerful critique of contemporary global capitalism.”
Review
“A powerful analysis that uncovers the relationship between securitization, neoliberal views of development, and repressive intervention. The book will interest—and inspire—a wide readership concerned with suffering and inequality.”
Review
“Gledhill shows that behind the discourses of 'war' against drug traffickers hides a war against the poor. He brilliantly articulates two new ethnographies of Mexico and Brazil, providing insight into the trans-nationalization of criminal networks in the Americas.”
Review
“Displaying his hallmark combination of deep ethnography and expansive theory, Gledhill compellingly lays out how the contradictions of neoliberal capital accumulation and securitization affect the livelihoods and politics of ordinary people in violence-ridden Brazil and Mexico, and, above all, how these people struggle to build spaces of popular sovereignty and dignity.”
Review
“Drawing on decades of field research in Mexico and Brazil, Gledhill pries apart recent processes of 'securitization' from the ostensibly similar notion of human security. Equal parts searing critique and sensible call to action, this book speaks truth to powerful actors.”
Review
“Drawing on his own extensive fieldwork, and with a passionate sense of justice, Gledhill shows how contemporary news stories on Latin America—violent drug trafficking, dramatic electoral battles, and the excitement of emerging markets—are best viewed as scenes in a broader canvas of predation, which in recent years has rendered a bitter irony: that security policy is tending to undermine the security of many Latin Americans, and especially the most vulnerable.”
Synopsis
An ethnography examining how indigenous residents of crime-ridden, marginalized neighborhoods in Cochabamba, Bolivia, struggle to balance human rights with their need for safety and security.
Synopsis
While governments and the media present the often violent, repressive actions of governments as something wholly distinct from—and certainly better than—the actions of criminals, to those who suffer the consequences of the contemporary public security state, the difference isn’t always so clear.
In The New War on the Poor, John Gledhill presents that perspective, linking the experiences of labor migrants crossing Latin America’s international borders; indigenous Mexicans defending their territories against capitalist mega-projects, drug wars, and paramilitary violence; Afro-Brazilians living on the urban periphery of Salvador; and farmers and business people tired of paying protection to criminal gangs. Through these close-up accounts of life lived on the margins, Gledhil reveals the too-close relationship between public power and private interest, and the unintended consequences and resistance that such repressive actions are beginning to generate.
About the Author
Daniel M. Goldstein is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. He is the author of The Spectacular City: Violence and Performance in Urban Bolivia and a coeditor of Violent Democracies of Latin America, both also published by Duke University Press.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1. Security, Rights, and the Law in Evo's Bolivia 1
2. Getting Engaged: Reflections on an Activist Anthropology 35
3. The Phantom State: Law and Ordering on the Urban Margins 77
4. Exorcising Ghosts: Managing Insecurity in Uhspa Uhspa 121
5. Community Justice and the Creative Imagination 167
6. Inhuman Rights? Violence at the Nexus of Rights and Security 203
7. An Uncertain Anthropology 239
Notes 257
References 281
Index 305