front cover of The Assassination of Gaitán
The Assassination of Gaitán
Public Life and Urban Violence in Colombia
Herbert Braun
University of Wisconsin Press, 1985

Drawn in part from personal interviews with participants and witnesses, Herbert Braun’s analysis of the riot’s roots, its patterns and consequences, provides a dramatic account of this historic turning point and an illuminating look at the making of modern Colombia.

Braun’s narrative begins in the year 1930 in Bogotá, Colombia, when a generation of Liberals and Conservatives came to power convinced they could kept he peace by being distant, dispassionate, and rational. One of these politicians, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, was different. Seeking to bring about a society of merit, mass participation, and individualism, he exposed the private interests of the reigning politicians and engendered a passionate relationship with his followers. His assassination called forth urban crowds that sought to destroy every visible evidence of public authority of a society they felt no longer had the moral right to exist.

This is a book about behavior in public: how the actors—the political elite, Gaitán, and the crowds—explained and conducted themselves in public, what they said and felt, and what they sought to preserve or destroy, is the evidence on which Braun draws to explain the conflicts contained in Colombian history. The author demonstrates that the political culture that was emerging through these tensions offered the hope of a peaceful transition to a more open, participatory, and democratic society.

“Most Colombians regard Jorge Eliécer Gaitán as a pivotal figure in their nation’s history, whose assassination on April 9, 1948 irrevocably changed the course of events in the twentieth century. . . . As biography, social history, and political analysis, Braun’s book is a tour de force.”—Jane M. Rausch, Hispanic American Historical Review

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front cover of Citizens of Fear
Citizens of Fear
Urban Violence in Latin America
Rotker, Susana
Rutgers University Press, 2002
Citizens in Latin American cities live in constant fear, amidst some of the most dangerous conditions on earth. In that vast region, 140 thousand people die violently each year, and one out of three citizens have been directly or indirectly victimized by violence. In Venezuela, adults are on average targets of crime seventeen crimes in their lifetimes, four of which are violent. In Mexico, 97 percent of all reported crimes go unpunished. Crime, in effect, is an undeclared war. Citizens of Fear, in part, assembles survey results of social scientists who document the pervasiveness of violence. But the numbers tell only part of the story. Other contributors present moving testimonials by the victimized and by journalists covering the scene. A third group of essayists explores the implications of the resulting fear for both thought and behavior. As Susana Rotker writes, "The city has been transformed into a space of vulnerability and danger...What I am interested in narrating here is...the generalized sensation of insecurity that taints the Latin American capitals, the sensation that has changed the ways people relate to urban space, to other human beings, to the state, and to the very concept of citizenship. "
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front cover of Living with Insecurity in a Brazilian Favela
Living with Insecurity in a Brazilian Favela
Urban Violence and Daily Life
Penglase, R. Ben
Rutgers University Press, 2015
The residents of Caxambu, a squatter neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, live in a state of insecurity as they face urban violence. Living with Insecurity in a Brazilian Favela examines how inequality, racism, drug trafficking, police brutality, and gang activities affect the daily lives of the people of Caxambu.  Some Brazilians see these communities, known as favelas, as centers of drug trafficking that exist beyond the control of the state and threaten the rest of the city. For other Brazilians, favelas are symbols of economic inequality and racial exclusion. Ben Penglase’s ethnography goes beyond these perspectives to look at how the people of Caxambu themselves experience violence. 

Although the favela is often seen as a war zone, the residents are linked to each other through bonds of kinship and friendship. In addition, residents often take pride in homes and public spaces that they have built and used over generations. Penglase notes that despite poverty, their lives are not completely defined by illegal violence or deprivation. He argues that urban violence and a larger context of inequality create a social world that is deeply contradictory and ambivalent. The unpredictability and instability of daily experiences result in disagreements and tensions, but the residents also experience their neighborhood as a place of social intimacy. As a result, the social world of the neighborhood is both a place of danger and safety.  
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