The Moral Economy of Violence in the US Inner City

Abstract

In an 8-week period, there were 16 shootings with three fatalities, three stabbings, and 14 additional "aggravated assaults" in the four square blocks surrounding our field site in the Puerto Rican corner of North Philadelphia. In the aftermath of the shoot-outs, the drug sellers operating on our block were forced to close down their operations by several mothers who repeatedly called the police. Drawing on the concept of moral economy (Thompson, Scott, Taussig), Mauss's interpretation of gift exchange, and a political economy critique of hypercarceralization in the United States, we understand the high levels of US inner-city violence as operating within a moral logic framed by economic scarcity and hostile state relations. Residents seek security, self-respect, and profit in social networks that compel them to participate in solidary exchanges of assistive violence dynamized by kinship and gender obligations. A hierarchical, extractive drug economy fills the void left by deindustrialization, resulting in a dynamic of embodied primitive accumulation at the expense of addicted customers and chronically incarcerated just-in-time street sellers at high risk of assault. Nevertheless, the mobilization of violence organizing the illegal drug economy also follows ethical norms and obligations that are recognized as legitimate by many local residents.

Moving beyond punitivism: Punishment, state failure and democracy at the margins

“…But underlying her joke was a reality where the use of informal networks was routinely mobilised in situations of danger (see also Girling et al, 1998). Similar to the moral economy of violence described by Karandinos et al (2014) in a poor Afro-American neighbourhood in Philadelphia, residents expected their friends and kin to act as allies against threats, expectations that could be instrumentalised in the pursuit of illegal force. For example, Ray was a local resident in his fifties who had fallen out with his next-door neighbour, a well-known local drug dealer.…”

Violencias institucionales y reproducción de estigmas en usuarios de cocaínas fumables de Montevideo

“…Así, el castigo continúa más allá de las instituciones de reclusión, y las violencias "ocultas" del sistema penal se convierten en marcas condenatorias incluso luego de cumplida la pena, reconocién-dose de esta forma un "cerco político del cuerpo" (Foucault, 2002), que dificulta fuertemente la inserción del sujeto en otras redes sociales distintas a las del mercado ilegal (Silva de Sousa, 2004;Karandinos et al, 2014).…”

“…¿Por qué es pertinente atender este par de oposiciones? En primera instancia, porque, si bien en Uruguay consumir cualquier droga es una actividad lícita, fumar pasta base es claramente ilegítimo, y el suministro y la venta de la sustancia es ilegal, por lo tanto para consumirla hay que participar de un mercado ilegal, que es inevitable generador de violencia interpersonal (Silva de Sousa, 2004) y de una economía moral de violencia (Karandinos, Hart, Castillo & Bourgois, 2014).…”

Urban segregation and the US heroin market: A quantitative model of anthropological hypotheses from an inner-city drug market

“…Their customers, who arrive predominantly on foot or by public transportation, have a dependable, constantly updated, informal information network that allows them quickly to discern the variations in heroin quality between sales spots. Fierce competition between corners and a direct link to wholesale suppliers of Colombian-sourced heroin have given rise to a market where it is always easy to find highly pure and cheap heroin (Karandinos et al, In Press). …”

“…That poverty is unequally distributed across ethnicities: the rate for Latinos is 39.4%, African-Americans 30.4%, and whites 17.7% 7 . According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2005–2009, three of the census tracts surrounding our field site had poverty rates over 54%; five of the eight poorest census tracts in the city were in the Puerto Rican section of North Philadelphia (Karandinos et al, In Press). The recent prolonged economic recession in Puerto Rico (2006–2012) continues to send new immigrants to the neighborhood who are desperate for Philadelphia's combination of low rents, informal low-wage jobs and minimal public assistance that is inaccessible in Puerto Rico--and has been disappearing in the US (Duany, 2011; Schram & Silverman, 2012).…”