Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban Poor Perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala

289 Pages·2004·3.5 MB·English

by  Moser Caroline O. N.

ENCOUNTERS WITH VIOLENCE IN
LATIN AMERICA
Latin America is both the most urbanized and the most violent developing
region, where the links between social exclusion, inequality, fear and inse-
curity are clearly visible. The banal, ubiquitous nature of drug crime,
robbery, gang and intra-family violence destablizes countries’ economies
and harms their people and social structures.
Encounters with Violence in Latin America explores the meaning of
violence and insecurity in nine towns and cities in Colombia and
Guatemala to create a framework of how and why daily violence takes
place at the community level. It uses pioneering new methods of participa-
tory urban appraisal to ask local people about their own perceptions of
violence as mediated by family, gender, ethnicity, and age. It develops a
typology which distinguishes between the political, social, and economic
violence that afflicts communities, and which assesses the costs and con-
sequences of violence in terms of community cohesion and social capital.
This gives voice to those whose daily lives are dominated by widespread
aggression, and provides important new insights for researchers and
policy-makers.
Caroline O.N. Moseris a social anthropologist and social policy specialist.
She is currently Senior Research Associate at the Overseas Development
Institute and Adjunct Professor at the New School University, New York.
Her publications include Gender Planning and Development (1993) and
Victims, Perpetrators or Actors?(with Fiona Clark, 2001).
Cathy McIlwaine is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography,
Queen Mary, University of London. She has co-authored and co-edited
Women of a Lesser Cost (with Sylvia Chant, 1995) and Challenges and
Changes in Middle America(with Katie Willis, 2002).

ENCOUNTERS WITH
VIOLENCE IN LATIN
AMERICA
Urban poor perceptions from Colombia
and Guatemala
Caroline O.N. Moser and
Cathy McIlwaine
First published 2004
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2004 Caroline O.N. Moser and Cathy McIlwaine
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-203-64635-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-67319-0 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–25864–2(Print Edition)
TO THE NEXT GENERATION OF PEACEFUL
YOUNG MEN, TAGE, MAX AND SAVVA

CONTENTS
List of figures ix
List of tables xiii
Acknowledgments xiv
1 Urban violence as a contested domain 1
2 Toward a policy-relevant positioning of violence:
the role of participatory research methodologies 20
3 The multiple complexity of daily violence in urban
Colombian and Guatemalan communities 40
4 Community perceptions of the structural factors
underlying political and economic violence 65
5 The family as a violent institution and the primary
site of social violence 99
6 Substance abuse-linked violence relating to drug and
alcohol consumption 117
7 Organized violence at the community level 137
8 Violence, social institutions and social capital in
communities 156
9 Avoiding or confronting violence? Community
perceptions of strategies and solutions 178
vii
CONTENTS
Appendices 197
Notes 234
Bibliography 243
Index 262
viii
FIGURES
2.1 Colombia: locations of towns and cities where the
research was conducted 29
2.2 Guatemala: locations of towns and cities where the
research was conducted 30
3.1 Types of violence and danger in Villa Real, Esquipulas,
Guatemala 47
3.2 Listing of violence and insecurity in El Arca, Cali,
Colombia 48
3.3 Causal flow diagram of types of violence in La Merced,
Guatemala City 49
3.4 Drawing of ‘what are you afraid of?’ in El Arca, Cali,
Colombia 51
3.5 Onion diagram of problems in Sacuma, Huehuetenango,
Guatemala 54
3.6 Map of dangerous places in El Arca, Cali, Colombia 58
3.7 Map of dangerous areas in La Merced, Guatemala City 59
3.8 Causal flow diagram of intra-family violence and
insecurity in Amanecer, Bucaramanga, Colombia 64
4.1 Framework for analyzing everyday urban violence 67
4.2 Causal flow diagram of violence in Colombia Chiquita,
Aguazul, Colombia 70
4.3 Causal flow diagram of the relationship between intra-
family violence, violence between neighbors and violence
over land in Colombia Chiquita, Aguazul, Colombia 72
4.4 Drawings of guerrillas in El Arca, Cali, Colombia 75
4.5 Causal flow diagram of the effects of the armed conflict
in La Merced, Guatemala City 76
4.6 Depiction of the government, Jericó, Bogotá, Colombia 79
4.7 Diagram of institutional links of the Casa de Justicia
(House of Justice) in Amanecer, Bucaramanga, Colombia 80
4.8 Diagram of the function of the Casa de Justicia(House of
Justice) in Amanecer, Bucaramanga, Colombia 80
ix