Abstract
Social symbolic action is interpreted through binary narrative as a discourse constructed by motives, relationships, and institutions. This discourse is based on a distinction between the pure and the impure, the good and the bad, and the sacred and the profane, and it is linked with the cultural imaginary that lends a particular meaning to social acts. In this case, the analysis of the binary narrative of self-defense groups in Tierra Caliente (Michoacán) allowed interpretations to be made regarding regional armed social action in a national setting, shaped by the government discourse that blames organized crime for national public insecurity.
Highlights
Social action mobilizes people, but it materializes or manifests itself in collective acts that are simultaneously interpreted by those who observe or experience them and those who carry them out
Social action is symbolic because it is understood through the meanings it generates that allow intelligibility and interpretation
The self-defense groups expressed the motives from which their armed collective action sprung as a consequence of public insecurity that was created by the presence of a particular method of payment, controlled in a discretionary way by Los Caballeros Templarios and based on force and coercion
Summary
Social action mobilizes people, but it materializes or manifests itself in collective acts that are simultaneously interpreted by those who observe or experience them and those who carry them out. The armed collective action of self-defense groups in Tierra Caliente (Michoacán), which is considered to be a communicative act, was linked to a staging of violence (a performance) whereby the collective belief-in-public-insecurity script was shared.
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