‘We will always be street’

Abstract

I have learned much about the limits and transformative potential of the street, la calle, as a site of struggle from and with radical organizations fighting against state violence in the urban global South. In this essay, I draw from these experiences as I continue to accompany various street-level social movements in Colombia and Uganda. I draw attention to the street as a site where state violence is enacted in tangible forms across scales. I illustrate, through discussion of a particular mural project in Bogotá, the way the state exerts its power and presence in society as pitted against the image of the urban poor. I urge scholars of street-level social movements and state violence to continue to look at this space of antagonism between the street and the state as a productive analytical space for radical geography and social movement scholarship, while keeping in mind the illustrated tensions. Additionally, in future work, I suggest we take a closer look at the class contrasts in street-level justice-seeking; the street, as a political space of encounter, between people propelled by the emotive forces of indignation and rage in mass acts of justice-seeking and those propelled by the structural forces of inequality and violence.

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