La violence en temps de guerre et en temps de paix. Partie 2

Les femmes dans l'engrenage de la violence Durant l'opération militaire menée en 1981, une jeune femme du nom de Carmen, alors âgée de dix-sept ans, m'avait demandé de la photographier dans l'une de nos cachettes. Elle a souri pour la photo, oubliant que les militaires salvadoriens étaient en train de bombarder les sommets du canyon où nous nous cachions quelques heures plus tôt. Le troisième jour des combats, Carmen a été touchée au dos par un éclat d'obus alors qu'elle défendait l'une des ..

Violence, respect et sexualité chez les revendeurs de crack portoricains d’East Harlem

Le vécu des hommes portoricains de la seconde génération qui participent à l'économie clandestine des ghettos illustre l'influence de la question du genre sur la souffrance sociale. Cet article s'intéresse à la manière dont les hommes portoricains des ghettos, confinés aux marges d'une nation ouvertement hostile à leur culture et que leur force de travail n'intéresse plus, reconstruisent leur conception de la masculinité par le biais de la violence interpersonnelle, du parasitisme économique et de la domination sexuelle. En nombre croissant, ces hommes désespérés et frustrés se sont réfugiés dans une culture protestataire de rue dont le fondement matériel et l'attrait idéologique s'enracinent dans l'économie de la drogue, alternative concrète à leur exclusion de l'économie licite et de la culture anglo-centrée. Loin d'être les simples jouets de forces structurelles et idéologiques plus vastes, les dealers qui participent à la culture de la rue sont en réalité les agents actifs d'une quête de la dignité - même si cette recherche se manifeste par la violence et l'autodestruction.Violence, Respect and Sexuality among Puerto Rican Drug Dealers in East Harlem, New York. -- The experience of second-generation Puerto Rican men who participate in the underground economy of the ghetto illustrates how gender affects social distress. This article concerns how Puerto Rican men of the ghetto who are stuck on the margins of a society that is no longer interested in their labour power rebuild their notion of masculinity via interpersonal violence, economic parasitism and sexual dominance. A growing number of these desperate and frustrated men have taken refuge in a street culture of protest whose material basis and ideological attraction are rooted in the drug trade, a concrete alternative to their exclusion from the legal economy and an Anglo-centred culture. Far from being the playthings of wider structural and ideological factors, the dealers who participate in street culture are agents actively engaged in a search for dignity -- even when this search takes the form of violence and self-destruction.Violencia, respeto y sexualidad entre los revendedores de crack puertorriqueños de East Harlem, Nueva York. -- El modo de vivir de los hombres puertorriqueños de le la segunda generación que participan a la economía clandestina de los ghettos ilustra la influencia de la problemática del genero sobre el sufrimiento social. Este articulo estudia la manera en la que esta población esta confinada en el margen de una nación abiertamente hostil a su cultura y donde su fuerza de trabajo ha dejado ya de interesar. En ese contexto el grupo reconstruye su concepción de la masculinidad a través de la violencia interpersonal, del parasitismo económico y de la dominación sexual. Cada vez mas numerosos, estos hombres desesperados y frustrados, van refugiándose en una cultura de protesta urbana donde el fundamento material y la atracción ideológica hunden sus raíces en la economía de la droga como alternativa concreta a la exclusión de la economía formal y a la cultura anglocentrada. Lejos de ser simples marionetas de fuerzas estructurales e ideológicas mas generales, los pequeños traficantes que participan de una cultura de la calle son, en realidad, agentes activos de una búsqueda de dignidad, aun si ella se manifiesta a través de la violencia y de la autodestrucción

La violence en temps de guerre et en temps de paix. Leçons de l'après-guerre froide : l'exemple du Salvador. Partie 1

La violence en temps de guerre et en temps de paix Leçons de l'après-guerre froide : l'exemple du Salvador « Quand les bombardements et les mitraillages au sol ont commencé, on m'a ordonné de m'accroupir derrière un tronc d'arbre, et quoiqu'il arrive, de rester immobile. Ils tiraient sur tout ce qui bougeait. Durant les quatre premiers jours, une quinzaine de femmes et d'enfants ont été blessés, des éclats d'obus ont été retirés et des amputations pratiquées sans aucun anesthésiant. Les tro..

Structural vulnerability to narcotics-driven firearm violence: An ethnographic and epidemiological study of Philadelphia's Puerto Rican inner-city.

BackgroundThe United States is experiencing a continuing crisis of gun violence, and economically marginalized and racially segregated inner-city areas are among the most affected. To decrease this violence, public health interventions must engage with the complex social factors and structural drivers-especially with regard to the clandestine sale of narcotics-that have turned the neighborhood streets of specific vulnerable subgroups into concrete killing fields. Here we present a mixed-methods ethnographic and epidemiological assessment of narcotics-driven firearm violence in Philadelphia's impoverished, majority Puerto Rican neighborhoods.MethodsUsing an exploratory sequential study design, we formulated hypotheses about ethnic/racial vulnerability to violence, based on half a dozen years of intensive participant-observation ethnographic fieldwork. We subsequently tested them statistically, by combining geo-referenced incidents of narcotics- and firearm-related crime from the Philadelphia police department with census information representing race and poverty levels. We explored the racialized relationships between poverty, narcotics, and violence, melding ethnography, graphing, and Poisson regression.FindingsEven controlling for poverty levels, impoverished majority-Puerto Rican areas in Philadelphia are exposed to significantly higher levels of gun violence than majority-white or black neighborhoods. Our mixed methods data suggest that this reflects the unique social position of these neighborhoods as a racial meeting ground in deeply segregated Philadelphia, which has converted them into a retail endpoint for the sale of astronomical levels of narcotics.ImplicationsWe document racial/ethnic and economic disparities in exposure to firearm violence and contextualize them ethnographically in the lived experience of community members. The exceptionally concentrated and high-volume retail narcotics trade, and the violence it generates in Philadelphia's poor Puerto Rican neighborhoods, reflect unique structural vulnerability and cultural factors. For most young people in these areas, the narcotics economy is the most readily accessible form of employment and social mobility. The performance of violence is an implicit part of survival in these lucrative, illegal narcotics markets, as well as in the overcrowded jails and prisons through which entry-level sellers cycle chronically. To address the structural drivers of violence, an inner-city Marshall Plan is needed that should include well-funded formal employment programs, gun control, re-training police officers to curb the routinization of brutality, reform of criminal justice to prioritize rehabilitation over punishment, and decriminalization of narcotics possession and low-level sales

Théoriser la violence en Amérique

RésuméCe retour sur trente années d’analyse de la violence lors de mes terrains en Amérique (Nicaragua, Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, États-Unis) montre l’importance et la difficulté, pour un ethnographe, de reconnaître les continuités de la violence à différentes périodes. Prenant appui sur le continuum du concept de violence, je propose de déterminer la pertinence de trois catégories de violence invisible : violence structurelle, violence symbolique et violence normalisée. Si la théorie est censée nous aider à mieux comprendre, alors théoriser la violence dans un continuum de catégories d’invisibilité est utile car cela va à l’encontre des effets politiques de l’hyper visibilité actuelle de la violence interpersonnelle et la petite délinquance de rue. La portée globale du néolibéralisme dans sa version punitive a été, durant ces vingt dernières années, de « lumpeniser » les populations urbaines et rurales. La mise au jour des liens entre les catégories de violence invisible dans un contexte mondial d’inégalité sociale explique l’absence de revendications de classe pour une redistribution des richesses économiques et le soutien de la population en faveur d’une forme de gouvernementalité physiquement répressive qui punit les populations jugées indignes.Theorizing Violence in the AmericasThis thirty year retrospective analysis of violence at my fieldwork sites in the Americas (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, USA) explores the importance and difficulty of recognizing the continuities of violence across historical eras as an ethnographer. Expanding on the continuum of violence concept, I propose the utility of identifying the mutually reinforcing interface of three overlapping categories of invisible violence : structural, symbolic and normalized. If theory is meant to help us see more, then theorizing violence through a continuum of categories of invisibility is useful because it contravenes the political effects of the contemporary hyper-visibility of interpersonal and petty criminal street violence. The increasing global reach of a punitive version of corporate neoliberalism over the past two decades has lumpenized large sectors of the urban and rural poor. Recognizing the links between categories of invisible violence in this globalized context of social inequality explains the demobilization of class-based demands for economic redistribution and populist support for physically repressive forms of governmentality that punish the poor deemed unworthy

Narrar el mundo narco: diálogo con Cristian Alarcón y Philippe Bourgois

Salud Colectiva initiated a dialogue between anthropologist Philippe Bourgois and journalist Cristian Alarcón. They offer here a backstage introduction to two daring, controversial and innovative books. Bourgois' In search of respect, recently published in Spanish, recounts the daily lives of crack dealers in Harlem, New York. The book Si me querés, quereme transa (If you love me, love me as a transa), by Alarcón, enters into the world of cocaine and "pasta base" (base paste) dealers in Buenos Aires. In the two works we see how both journalistic and ethnographic researches evolve into learning processes completely devoid of the typical arrogance of an explorer in strange territories. Alarcon and Bourgois had to undergo transformations and learn a habitus completely unfamiliar to them in order to build connections with Buenos Aires "transas" and Puerto Rican crack dealers. Such bonds are presented as necessary conditions for the kind of qualitative investigation they defend.Salud Colectiva convocó a un diálogo entre Philippe Bourgois y Cristian Alarcón. El antropólogo y el cronista ofrecen aquí una excursión al backstage de dos libros innovadores, polémicos y desafiantes. En busca de respeto, de Bourgois, recientemente publicado en español, construye un relato sobre la trama cotidiana de los vendedores de crack en Harlem, Nueva York. Si me querés, quereme transa, de Alarcón, ingresa en el universo de los traficantes de cocaína y "pasta base" en Buenos Aires. En ambos, vemos la forma en que tanto la investigación periodística como la etnográfica devienen un proceso de aprendizaje, totalmente despojado de la soberbia del descubridor en territorios extraños. Alarcón y Bourgois tuvieron que transformarse ellos mismos, aprender un habitus que les era completamente ajeno, para poder construir relaciones afectivas con traficantes ("transas" y puertorriqueños vendedores de crack). Esos afectos aparecen posicionados como condición de posibilidad del tipo de investigación cualitativa que ellos defienden

Tão perto de casa, tão longe de nós: etnografia das novas margens no centro da urbe

Philippe Bourgois é, desde 2007, “Richard Perry University professor” no Departamento de Antropologia e de Medicina Familiar e de Práticas Comunitárias na Universidade da ­Pensilvânia. Esteve durante largos anos ligado ao Departamento de Antropologia, História e Medicina Social da Universidade da Califórnia, São Francisco. A publicação, em 1995, de In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio projectaria o seu nome muito para além dos Estados Unidos: uma etnografia no coração porto­‑riquenho do Harlem, em torno dos actores e dos ambientes da venda de crack. Seguir­‑se­‑ia um longo trabalho de terreno em acampamentos de dependentes de heroína em São Francisco, orientando o seu trabalho para as formas mais radicais da pobreza e da marginalidade nos EUA. É deste trabalho de terreno que sai o seu último livro, Righteous Dopefiend. Em Junho de 2007 esteve em Lisboa para participar na 3.ª edição do “Ethnografeast”. Foi então que aproveitámos a oportunidade para ouvir um percurso invulgar contado pelo próprio: uma longa conversa no Hotel Zurique, cujo nome só vem ao caso por evocar o país onde passou uma parte da infância

Survey of drinking water access points in the Sierra Leone Districts of Bo, Koinadugu and Tonkolili 2010/2011

An independent study conducted by a French NGO in Sierra Leone at the end of 2010 surveyed all existing water access points across three districts, documenting in detail the quality of the 2,859 structures identified. Only 30% of the structures in place were found to be capable of delivering access to safe water throughout the year. Analysis of the results indicate that the low level of functionality reflects a supply-driven approach, a decrease in the quality of construction and an absence of attention to socio-organisational factors long known to be absolutely essential to the proper functioning of the systems. Given the critical importance of access to safe drinking water and the disparity between the stated intentions of donor organisations and the realities on the ground, the survey provides a telling picture that could be used as a basis for change and increased effectiveness

Pax narcotica

Fondé sur un travail de terrain mené pendant cinq ans dans le ghetto portoricain de Philadelphie, cet article explore les logiques de violence et de paix dans ce secteur situé en fin de circuit de l’industrie globale du narcotrafic. Tout en recourant à la violence armée pour défendre leur territoire, les patrons locaux de la drogue doivent simultanément renvoyer l’image de figures généreuses pour éviter que les habitants ne les dénoncent à la police, en se montrant respectueux, prêts à redistribuer les ressources, à discipliner leurs employés et à contenir les excès de violence. Les chefs de la drogue sont donc contraints de transformer leur force brute en un pouvoir vertueux pour prospérer. Ils participent ainsi, avec voisins et employés, à une économie morale de relations patri-moniales et clientélistes au sein de laquelle ils s’imposent comme des leaders charismatiques. À partir d’une relecture du concept d’« accumulation primitive », cet article revient à la fois : sur la relation coloniale qui pousse la diaspora portoricaine ghettoïsée dans la niche économique que représente la revente de drogue au détail ; sur la violence symbolique à l’œuvre à tous les échelons de ce trafic ; sur les profits artificiellement élevés générés par cette industrie criminalisée par l’État ; et sur la prolifération opportuniste de secteurs spécialisés de l’économie légale et de la bureaucratie publique chargés de gérer les effets collatéraux de la coercition et des violences d’État.Drawing on five years of participant-observation fieldwork in the open-air heroin and cocaine markets of Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican inner-city we explore the logics for violence and peace at the endpoint of the global narcotics industry. The drug bosses engage in dramatic shoot-outs to fend off rivals. Simultaneously, however, they must try to convince neighbors that they are generous, responsible patrons, who redistribute resources, and limit the overflow of violence. The most successful drug bosses cultivate patrimonial clientelist relations with neighbors and employees to elicit personal respect and foster a charismatic legitimacy in the face of more volatile rivals and a hostile de facto police state. We draw on Marx’s concept of « primitive accumulation » to highlight : the colonial relation that propels the ghettoized Puerto Rican diaspora into the narcotics retail marketing niche ; the symbolic violence of the labor hierarchy that destroys and enchants the lives of its lowest rung employees ; the artificially high profits of an industry criminalized by the state that destroys both its customers and its labor force ; the explosion in size of the panoply of ancillary industries and parasitical special interest sectors of the legal economy and the public bureaucracy that manage the collateral effects of state coercion and abuse

Reinterpreting Ethnic Patterns among White and African American Men Who Inject Heroin: A Social Science of Medicine Approach

BACKGROUND: Street-based heroin injectors represent an especially vulnerable population group subject to negative health outcomes and social stigma. Effective clinical treatment and public health intervention for this population requires an understanding of their cultural environment and experiences. Social science theory and methods offer tools to understand the reasons for economic and ethnic disparities that cause individual suffering and stress at the institutional level. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We used a cross-methodological approach that incorporated quantitative, clinical, and ethnographic data collected by two contemporaneous long-term San Francisco studies, one epidemiological and one ethnographic, to explore the impact of ethnicity on street-based heroin-injecting men 45 years of age or older who were self-identified as either African American or white. We triangulated our ethnographic findings by statistically examining 14 relevant epidemiological variables stratified by median age and ethnicity. We observed significant differences in social practices between self-identified African Americans and whites in our ethnographic social network sample with respect to patterns of (1) drug consumption; (2) income generation; (3) social and institutional relationships; and (4) personal health and hygiene. African Americans and whites tended to experience different structural relationships to their shared condition of addiction and poverty. Specifically, this generation of San Francisco injectors grew up as the children of poor rural to urban immigrants in an era (the late 1960s through 1970s) when industrial jobs disappeared and heroin became fashionable. This was also when violent segregated inner city youth gangs proliferated and the federal government initiated its “War on Drugs.” African Americans had earlier and more negative contact with law enforcement but maintained long-term ties with their extended families. Most of the whites were expelled from their families when they began engaging in drug-related crime. These historical-structural conditions generated distinct presentations of self. Whites styled themselves as outcasts, defeated by addiction. They professed to be injecting heroin to stave off “dopesickness” rather than to seek pleasure. African Americans, in contrast, cast their physical addiction as an oppositional pursuit of autonomy and pleasure. They considered themselves to be professional outlaws and rejected any appearance of abjection. Many, but not all, of these ethnographic findings were corroborated by our epidemiological data, highlighting the variability of behaviors within ethnic categories. CONCLUSIONS: Bringing quantitative and qualitative methodologies and perspectives into a collaborative dialog among cross-disciplinary researchers highlights the fact that clinical practice must go beyond simple racial or cultural categories. A clinical social science approach provides insights into how sociocultural processes are mediated by historically rooted and institutionally enforced power relations. Recognizing the logical underpinnings of ethnically specific behavioral patterns of street-based injectors is the foundation for cultural competence and for successful clinical relationships. It reduces the risk of suboptimal medical care for an exceptionally vulnerable and challenging patient population. Social science approaches can also help explain larger-scale patterns of health disparities; inform new approaches to structural and institutional-level public health initiatives; and enable clinicians to take more leadership in changing public policies that have negative health consequences