Synopses & Reviews
Despite recent political movements to establish democratic rule in Latin American countries, much of the region still suffers from pervasive violence. From vigilantism, to human rights violations, to police corruption, violence persists. It is perpetrated by state-sanctioned armies, guerillas, gangs, drug traffickers, and local community groups seeking self-protection. The everyday presence of violence contrasts starkly with governmental efforts to extend civil, political, and legal rights to all citizens, and it is invoked as evidence of the failure of Latin American countries to achieve true democracy. The contributors to this collection take the more nuanced view that violence is not a social aberration or the result of institutional failure; instead, it is intimately linked to the institutions and policies of economic liberalization and democratization.
The contributorsandmdash;anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, and historiansandmdash;explore how individuals and institutions in Latin American democracies, from the rural regions of Colombia and the Dominican Republic to the urban centers of Brazil and Mexico, use violence to impose and contest notions of order, rights, citizenship, and justice. They describe the lived realities of citizens and reveal the historical foundations of the violence that Latin America suffers today. One contributor examines the tightly woven relationship between violent individuals and state officials in Colombia, while another contextualizes violence in Rio de Janeiro within the transnational political economy of drug trafficking. By advancing the discussion of democratic Latin American regimes beyond the usual binary of success and failure, this collection suggests more sophisticated ways of understanding the challenges posed by violence, and of developing new frameworks for guaranteeing human rights in Latin America.
Contributors: Enrique Desmond Arias, Javier Auyero, Lilian Bobea, Diane E. Davis, Robert Gay, Daniel M. Goldstein, Mary Roldandaacute;n, Todd Landman, Ruth Stanley, Marandiacute;a Clemencia Ramandiacute;rez
Review
andldquo;Contributors to the volume Violent Democracies in Latin America do an excellent job of opening new paths for exploring this abiding question. . . . This edited volume is remarkably coherent and the chapters fit together nicely. . . . [E]ach chapter makes a unique contribution to the interdisciplinary conceptualization of violent pluralism.andrdquo; - Kedron Thomas, Anthropological Quarterly
Review
andldquo;Violent Democracies in Latin America is a welcome addition to cross-disciplinary studies of Latin American politics. . . . Violent Democracies forces the readers to consider each case study in its specificity and the common problems of the region as a whole, which is, I would submit, the only way to address the problem of violence in todayandrsquo;s Latin American states.andrdquo; - Isabel DiVanna, Canadian Journal of History
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
Collection asks why, despite the democratization of Latin American societies, multiple forms of violence have proliferated in recent years, exploring how various actors use violence to contest ideas of order, rights, citizenship, and justice.
Synopsis
A collection exploring how individuals and institutions in contemporary Latin American democracies use violence to impose and contest notions of order, rights, citizenship, and justice.
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
“Contributors to the volume Violent Democracies in Latin America do an excellent job of opening new paths for exploring this abiding question. . . . This edited volume is remarkably coherent and the chapters fit together nicely. . . . [E]ach chapter makes a unique contribution to the interdisciplinary conceptualization of violent pluralism.” - Kedron Thomas, Anthropological Quarterly“Violent Democracies of Latin America superbly captures the on-going tensions between security and insecurity, on the one side, and pressures for social change and participatory democracy, on the other. Contributors provide multiple insights into how these tensions clash, interface, and then meld into a ‘violent pluralism’ of new Latin American democracies.”—Martha Huggins, Charles and Leo Favrot Professor of Human Relations, Tulane University
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Violent Pluralism: Understanding the New Democracies of Latin America / Enrique Desmond Arias and Daniel M. Goldstein 1
The Political and Economic Origins of Violence and Insecurity in Contemporary Latin America: Past Trajectories and Future Prospects / Diane E. Davis 35
End of Discussion: Violence, Participatory Democracy, and the Limits of Dissent in Colombia / Mary Roldandaacute;n 63
Maintaining Democracy in Colombia through Political Exclusion, States of Exception, Counterinsurgency, and Dirty War / Marandiacute;a Clemencia Ramandiacute;rez 84
Clandestine Connections: The Political and Relational Makings of Collective Violence / Javier Auyero 108
andquot;Living in a Jungleandquot;: State Violence and Perceptions of Democracy in Buenos Aires / Ruth Stanley 133
Organized Violence, Disorganized State / Lilian Bobea 161
Toward Uncivil Society: Causes and Consequences of Violence in Rio de Janeiro / Robert Gay 201
Violence, Democracy, and Human Rights in Latin America / Todd Landman 226
Conclusion: Understanding Violent Pluralism / Enrique Desmond Arias 242
References 265
Contributors 299
Index 301