Reconceptualizing Urban Violence from the Global South

Abstract

Although urban violence is most often theorized in relation to marginality, violence affects wealthy and poor in Latin America, albeit in different ways. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork and media coverage of a gruesome turf war in Monterrey, Mexico, this paper illustrates how an increase in violence have led the upper class to “disembed” the municipality of San Pedro from the Monterrey Metropolitan Area, revamp the police, and attempt to create not only a “defended neighborhood,” but an entire “defended city.” Contemporary San Pedro reveals that violence and related fear can prompt not only the fragmentation of urban space into numerous gated communities, but also the simultaneous concentration of urban wealth and public security at a city level. Latin American metropoles call for a reconceptualization of urban violence beyond the margins and a closer examination of the invisible walls enclosing the urban wealthy around the world.

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