Violence, the State, and the Poor: A View from the South,

Abstract

What are the basic contours of a political sociology of violence at the urban margins? Drawing on past and current ethnographic research in a poor area of Buenos Aires, this article calls for systematic research of the points of contact (overt and covert) between agents of the state and the poor. We argue that as part and parcel of the illicit drug trade, clandestine interventions of the state intensify interpersonal violence.