ISBN:
9781477323885
,
9781477323892
Language:
English
Pages:
vi, 245 Seiten
,
Illustrationen
Edition:
First edition
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als Campbell, Howard, 1957- Downtown Juárez
DDC:
303.60972/16
Keywords:
Violence
;
Drug traffic Social aspects
;
Street life
;
Bars (Drinking establishments) Social aspects
;
Brothels Social aspects
;
Violence History
;
Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) Social conditions
;
Ciudad Juárez
;
Innenstadt
;
Bar
;
Bordell
;
Drogenhandel
;
Gewalt
;
Missbrauch
;
Prostitution
;
Menschenhandel
;
Sozialer Konflikt
Abstract:
Introduction: Borders of the mind--violence in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico -- Synergistic violence and the normalization of violence in a border context -- The bridge: concentrations of power, economic exchange, and transnational humanity -- The historical roots of violence, crime and abuse in downtown Juárez and Colonia Bellavista -- Colonia Bellavista today -- Avenida Juárez today -- Prostitution and sex workers in the downtown street scene -- Contemporary gay pick-up scenes and danger in downtown Juárez -- Border bar life: an introduction -- A place without limits: inebriation and dehumanization at The Club -- The dark side of Juárez man caves: the boozy routine of life, sex and drug deals and abuses, and a Juárez-based philosophy of masculine nihilism -- Bars as sites and staging areas for the drug business and other petty crimes: hanging out in the 69 Lounge, waiting for something to happen -- Downtown bars as locations of both pleasure and victimization: sex, drugs and extortion at El Antro -- Downtown bars and criminality: human smugglers and cross-border drug smugglers in central Juárez -- Everyday drug dealers in downtown Juárez -- Human perseverance amidst recurring "drug wars" -- The naturalization of "drug violence": hitmen and drug killings -- Paloma makes a life in the downtown bars: survival amid crime, violence, drugs, and sexual abuse -- Conclusion: Synergistic violence and the cycle of victimization on the border.
Abstract:
"Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico is still one of the most violent cities in the world. It is the Mexican community most affected by the Mexican "drug war." The drug war is not an officially declared war but a roughly fifteen-year period of massacres, gun battles, assassinations, and other crimes that have claimed about 200,000 lives and left 30,000 people missing. The main participants in these conflicts include drug cartels, gangs, the Mexican military, police forces, and common criminals. At present, there is no indication that this war is slowing down nationally or in Juárez. This book is an ethnographic study concerned with all of the above, as manifested in the violence and moral depravity in the bars, streets, brothels, and neighborhoods of downtown Juárez. The central figures are sex workers, addicts, drug dealers, enforcers, bar flies, bar owners, human smugglers, migrants, unemployed or underemployed workers, expatriates, street vendors, and others who make their living hustling in the streets and along the borderline. Through oral histories, contemporary interviews, and observations made over a 28-year period of field research, Campbell explores the ways in which violence and abuse play out at the street level in specific cantinas, barrios, brothels, and drug-selling plazas. After critiquing the main theories propounded to explain Mexican "drug violence," Campbell presents his own synthetic theory--"synergistic violence"--which focuses on how violence becomes normalized and naturalized over time (and is not specific to Juárez or Mexico). He then offers chapters about the history of Juárez, and takes the reader on a tour through present-day downtown Juárez. Subsequent chapters are devoted to the bars/brothels where sex and drugs are exchanged, to the violence that comes with life in those bars/brothels, to human smuggling, to a battle between one local gang and the local police, and to one particular sex worker. The final chapter circles back to the theories he introduced at the start of the book, and how they relate to the ethnographies and oral histories of the preceding pages in an Arendt-ian "banality of evil.""--
Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index
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