Uses and Forms of Violence among the Urban Poor

Abstract

AbstractBased on 30 months of collaborative fieldwork in a poor neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, this paper scrutinises the multiple uses of violence among residents and the concatenations between private and public forms of physical aggression. Much of the violence reported here resembles that which has been dissected by students of street violence in the United States – that is, it is the product of interpersonal retaliation and remains encapsulated in dyadic exchanges. However, by casting a wider net to include other forms of aggression (not only criminal but also sexual, domestic and intimate) that take place inside and outside the home, and that intensely shape the course of poor people's daily lives, the paper argues that diverse forms of violence among the urban poor (a) serve more than just retaliatory purposes, and (b) link with one another beyond dyadic relationships.