Books projects
At the Crosslines of Violence: Women, Meaning-making, and Power in Peru's Urban Margins
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Despite more recent evidence that points to the gendered, far-reaching consequences of violence, much of what we know about how violence manifests and reproduces in daily life at the urban margins comes from the extraordinary stories of men involved in crime. Drawing on sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, ninety-four interviews, and twelve focus groups with residents, government workers, politicians, academics, and local leaders in Callao, Peru, At the Crosslines of Violence shifts the lens to the experiences of women living in one of Peru’s most dangerous districts.
First, I argue that women’s experiences reveal that both physicality and ideas of race, gender, and class give rise to violence and allow it to reproduce. Violence has a material and cultural component, and understanding it requires addressing this dual nature. Second, their experiences highlight the interconnectedness of different forms of violence—from domestic abuse to homicides—and challenge the divide between public and private spaces. Gender-based violence is shaped by what happens on the streets, just as urban violence permeates the intimate spaces of the home. The separation between public and private forms of violence obscures the relationships of domination that define the fate of urban margin residents in contemporary neoliberal societies. By offering a new approach to studying violence, At the Crosslines of Violence provides critical insights into what sustains violence and makes it an enduring part of life in Latin America and beyond. |
Peer-reviewed articles
Governing Through Exception: Managing Urban Violence through States of Emergency
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This paper explores the recurring use of states of emergency (SoEs) in Callao, Peru, as a response to escalating violence and criminal activity. Focusing on the 2015 and 2022 SoEs, the study draws on 16 months of fieldwork, including interviews and focus groups with local residents, government officials, and experts, to examine the role of SoEs in violence governance. While SoEs are often criticized as authoritarian and punitive, this paper argues that they also serve as pragmatic tools for state actors to address public crises and maintain legitimacy in the face of institutional weaknesses. By temporarily bypassing bureaucratic and legal constraints, SoEs facilitate inter-institutional coordination, temporarily enhancing police presence, and restoring a fleeting sense of state control. However, the increased enforcement capacity is short-lived, exposing the limitations of the state's long-term ability to address the root causes of violence. The paper introduces the concept of “governing through exception,” which views SoEs not just as a tool of repression, but as a pragmatic strategy to govern violence in moments of crisis. This analysis challenges conventional critiques of emergency powers by emphasizing the practical and contextual uses of SoEs.
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Surviving Everyday Violence: Motherwork and Curated Socialization at Peru's Urban Margins
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While extensive research has explored how poor individuals acquire material resources to survive poverty, there is a growing call for studies highlighting the strategies residents of urban marginalized neighborhoods use to manage interpersonal and state violence (Deckard and Auyero 2022; Hernández, Law, and Auyero 2022). Prior ethnographic research on urban violence has shed light on various strategies people residing in marginalized urban neighborhoods use to face interpersonal, police, and structural violence. Notwithstanding the relevant contributions of this research, these studies have often overlooked the gendered nature of these strategies. In particular, how gender and motherhood play a crucial role in the strategies people use and the motivations behind these strategies. Based on 16 months of ethnographic research and 38 interviews with women residing in Puerto Nuevo, a marginalized urban neighborhood in Callao, the district with the second-highest homicide rate in Peru, this article examines how women in Puerto Nuevo engage in motherwork as a survival strategy in a context shaped by chronic violence, economic hardship, and institutional neglect. The results show that through curated socialization, Puerto Nuevo mothers teach their children how to navigate a neighborhood where drug activity, gang violence, and police abuse is constant. With limited resources, Puerto Nuevo women engage in motherwork, actively working to protect their children and teach them skills to anticipate, deal with, and escape violence. Their motherwork entails a form of “concerted cultivation” (Lareau 2003) that is attuned to a distinct everyday reality.
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Book chapters
Reframing the Urban Margins: Participatory Photography and Youth Agency amidst Violence in Peru
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This chapter examines the potential of participatory research to challenge stigmatized narratives of marginalized urban communities by focusing on the voices of young people living in Puerto Nuevo, an Asentamiento Humano (shantytown) in Callao, the district with Peru's second-highest homicide rate. The study employed photography workshops, focus groups, and interviews with children and youth (ages 8-25) to foreground young residents’ perspectives on daily life amidst poverty and violence.
Through participatory photography, Puerto Nuevo youth documented the everyday life of the community, yet reclaiming the representation of their neighborhood was not immediate. The project became a space for reflection, where youth confronted negative portrayals they had internalized about their community, gradually shifting perspectives and highlighting neighborhood pride. Their photos and narratives capture a multifaceted reality that showcases the social bonds, communal spaces, and personal aspirations that shape their lived experiences. Building on this visual foundation, the photographs served as elicitation tools for the interviews and focus groups. Central to the methodology was a field team comprising Puerto Nuevo residents who co-created, validated, and implemented research instruments. This process revealed the strengths and tensions of participatory research. Team members, positioned as both insiders and researchers, sometimes reinforced the stigma that the study sought to challenge and at the same time fostered a more nuanced understanding of local realities. By positioning youth as co-creators of knowledge, this study illuminates the benefits and challenges of participatory methodologies in contexts of violence. The process not only fostered agency and contested exclusionary narratives, but also exposed underlying power imbalances and moments where stigma was inadvertently reinforced. This chapter contributes to broader discussions on participatory action research (PAR) by demonstrating how collaborative methodologies can create spaces for dialogue and autonomy, while revealing the complexities of navigating everyday life amidst violence. |