Territories of Violence

Rivera, Lirio Gutiérrez

doi:10.1057/9781137027955

Cited by 36 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…My findings support previous scholarly findings that gangs provide social welfare, protection and justice (e.g. Blake, Harriot and Jaffe on gangs in Jamaica, 147 Stephenson in Russia, 148 McDonalds and Wilson in Indonesia, 149 or Gutiérrez Rivera in Honduras 150 ). Scholars argue that gangs' social behaviour grants them authority, respect and community support.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 88%

“…48 Gutiérrez Rivera found that in the 1990s local communities in Honduras controlled by the gangs MS and M-18 didn't perceive them as threats, but as 'forms of protection, from burglars, delinquents, and other threats'. 49 The 1990 Nicaraguan youth gangs, known as pandilla, were 'recognizable social institutions that obeyed and imposed codified rules' as Rodgers explains, and refrained from harming local community residents. 50 Gangs have also taken over roles as justice providers by enacting rules, prosecuting crimes and sentencing according to their own view of life.…”

Section: Urban Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…55 In the case of Honduras, gangs increased their use of violence to maintain their 'legitimate community status,' as Gutiérrez Rivera observed, by threatening, mugging and extorting residents, nonresidents and taxi and bus drivers. 56 Scholarly literature has so far failed to theorise the ambiguity the two faces of gangs: as caring social actors and as instigators of cruelty and actors of excessive violence and terror. These examples from all over the world call for a thorough examination of the relationship, but has not resulted in a conceptualisation thereof.…”

Section: Urban Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Hobsbawm in Trinidad: understanding contemporary modalities of urban violence

Pawelz

2018

Conflict, Security & Development

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Eric Hobsbawm's milestone work Bandits is attentive to the rural poor and situates social banditry within the world of peasant resistance, but his concepts are surprisingly adaptable to contemporary urban settings. Drawing on Hobsbawm's conceptualisation of social banditry and avengers, this article examines the perspective of gangs who perceive themselves as victims of inequality, poverty and capitalism; who serve as social actors and security providers for their communities; and who at the same time engage in cruelty and high levels of violence and terror. This qualitative study is based on fieldwork undertaken in Trinidad and Tobago. Findings show that Hobsbawm's figure of the avenger contributes to a better understanding of the contemporary modalities of urban violence and helps unpacking and characterise the ambiguity of the relationship between gangs and local communities.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Urban Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Urban Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Hobsbawm in Trinidad: understanding contemporary modalities of urban violence

Pawelz

2018

Conflict, Security & Development

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“…Ethnographies from the United Kingdom (Densley, 2011;Hallsworth, 2013;Ilan, 2015), France (Mohammed and Mucchielli, 2016), Spain (Feixa and Romaní, 2014), the USA (Flores, 2014;Martinez, 2016;Tapia, 2017;Dur an, 2018) and Central America (Cruz, 2010;Rodgers and Baird, 2015), from Guatemala (Levenson, 2013;O'Neill, 2015;Fontes, 2018) to Honduras (Wolseth, 2011;Rivera, 2013), to El Salvador (Zilberg, 2011;Ward, 2013), describe how "gang talk" is used as a political windfall for authoritarian politics. For example, the Trump administration strategically associated Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) with migrant "caravans" moving through Central America (Fontes, 2018) and used "the gang" to politically construct a "Latino crime threat" in the USA (Flores, 2014) that resulted in children being separated from their parents at the border and increased use of detention and deportation to deter migrants and asylum seekers.…”

Section: Criminalising the Gangmentioning

confidence: 99%

If crime is not the problem, crime fighting is no solution: policing gang violence in the age of abolition

Hellemont

Densley

2021

JACPR

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Purpose In their 1999 classic, Crime is Not the Problem, Zimring and Hawkins changed the way criminologists thought about crime and violence simply by forcing us to distinguish between them. In so doing, they advanced an agenda for a more effective response to the real “crime” problem in America – violence. In this short commentary, the authors apply this logic to gang research and responses. The authors argue police fall short in responding to “gangs” because researchers and policymakers have defined them in terms of criminal behaviour writ large, not the problem that really needs policing – the precise social and spatial dynamics of gang violence. The purpose of this paper is to stand on the shoulders of others who have stated violence trumps gangs when it comes to policy and practice and provide a conceptual review of the literature that captures mainstream and critical perspectives on gangs and offers both sides some common ground to start from as they contemplate “policing” gangs with or without police. Design/methodology/approach A review of the extant literature. Findings The authors stand on the shoulders of others who have stated violence trumps gangs when it comes to policy and practice, to provide a conceptual review of the literature that captures mainstream and critical perspectives on gangs, in North American and European contexts, and offers both sides some common ground to start from as they contemplate “policing” gangs with or without police. Originality/value The paper is a conceptual piece looking at policing gang violence versus gang crime. The paper aims to restart the debate around the role of crime in gangs and gangs in crime. This debate centres around whether gangs should be understood as primarily criminal groups, whether “the gang” is to blame for the crime and violence of its members and what feature of collective crime and violence designate “gangness”. We use that debate to reflect past and current police practices towards gangs.

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“…A source of such stalled democratization is a fundamentally weak state. Among measures of state weakness, such as legitimacy (Call 2017), one that stands out is the state's thin presence in much of its territory (O'Donnell 1993;Gutiérrez Rivera 2013). In Central America, such weakness is evident at the borders and ports through which firearms flow.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Armed Arena: Arms Trafficking in Central America

Ungar

2020

Lat. American Res. Rev.

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To explain the high rates of violence in Central America’s Northern Triangle, this article argues that it is rooted in an armed arena comprised of state and nonstate actors with roles in security, ranging from the military to organized crime. In this space of collaboration, those actors bring resources and reap rewards, strengthening their relationships in the process. Of the many activities within the armed arena, one of the most destructive is the trafficking of firearms. Based on fieldwork in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, this article focuses on two sets of relationships that demonstrate the armed arena’s strength. The first set is the area of criminal justice, centered on investigations, ballistics, inventories, and destruction of arms. The second is the arms market: regional trafficking, internal arms sales, and the state’s licensing system. Evaluating governmental responses, the final section shows that arms control policies are most effective when they target and disrupt these relationships.

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Territories of Violence

Cited by 36 publications

References 0 publications

Hobsbawm in Trinidad: understanding contemporary modalities of urban violence

Hobsbawm in Trinidad: understanding contemporary modalities of urban violence

If crime is not the problem, crime fighting is no solution: policing gang violence in the age of abolition

The Armed Arena: Arms Trafficking in Central America

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