This study reexamines how the racial construction of body/place is closely related to symbolic processes in the ordering of the sensory experiences of working‐class and poor neighborhoods. Specifically, it considers the role played by soundscapes in the aforementioned relationships within Andean communities in Madrid (Spain), and Palenquera communities in Cartagena (Colombia). The analytical framework of this article aims to rework the contributions of the sensory turn in sociology, so as to connect them with key categories taken from Critical Race Studies. To fulfill the aims of this work, a sensuous ethnography was carried out, including in‐depth interviews with inhabitants of working‐class and poor neighborhoods and activists from antiracist organizations. At the same time, the analysis was carried out into the cities’ local newspapers. The application of these conceptual frameworks and methodologies led to one main conclusion: sensory conflict related to sound in these cities is a fundamental manifestation of the racialization of space. The working‐class and poor neighborhoods of Cartagena and Madrid do not reproduce hegemonic urban sensory models but instead resist them on a daily basis.
This article aims to deepen the debate around the precarization and marginalization experience of impoverished social groups in the Colombian Caribbean, associating these two categories of analysis to the risk of environmental disasters. Here we present a concrete experience of marginality linked to environmental risk, the case of La Loma in Cartagena, located on the highest hill of the city (La Popa) and designated by the authorities as «high risk area». The case was reviewed through the application of a preliminary survey, five semi-structured interviews to collect the stories of the villagers and a detailed examination of the official correspondence between Government institutions and community leaders. The results obtained allow us to affirm that the «environmental risk» is, for the authorities, a) the discursive framework that justifies interventions towards the eviction, but also b) the point of convergence of community identities linked to the territory. To situate the above, a specific experience of marginality linked to environmental risk, La Loma’s case, identified by the authorities of Cartagena as «high-risk landslide zone», located in the highest hill of the city, La Popa, will be reviewed.
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