Fri, Nov 1, 2013 • 12:00 PM • CLA 1.302B

Based on 30 months of collaborative fieldwork in a poor neighborhood in Buenos Aires, and emphasizing more the ethnographic showing than the telling, this presentation scrutinizes the multiple uses of violence in the area and the concatenations between private and public forms of physical aggression. Much of the violence reported here resembles that which has been dissected by students of street violence in the United States, i.e. it is the product of interpersonal retaliation and remains encapsulated in dyadic exchanges. However, upon casting a wider net to include other forms of aggression (not only public but also sexual, domestic, and intimate) that take place inside and outside the home, and that intensely shape the course of residents’ daily lives, Auyero argues that diverse forms of violence among the urban poor: a) serve more than just retaliatory purposes, b) link with one another beyond only dyadic relationships, and c) become a repertoire of action.

Javier Auyero – auyero@austin.utexas.edu
Department of Sociology, The University of Texas at Austin

Sponsored by the Population Research Center (PRC).