Between Mistrust and Solidarity: An Ethnography of Insecurity in Urban Venezuela

• In Event: Padding the Iron Fist? Ethnographic Approaches to Ongoing Criminal Justice and Citizen Security Reforms in Latin America

Abstract

Contemporary Venezuela is reported to have some of the highest rates of violent crime Latin America. According to the Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia, there were over 24,000 homicides in the country in 2013. To date, much of the research on this phenomenon has focused on the possible causes of violent crime, identifying rising inequality during the 1980s and 1990s, high rates of corruption in the country’s police forces, a dysfunctional justice system and the pervasive influence of drug trafficking and gang culture. By contrast, there has been comparatively little scholarly work on the impact of what Venezuelans call la inseguridad on the everyday lives of the population. This paper examines how working-class Venezuelans adapt to insecurity in their everyday lives. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Valencia between 2009 and 2015, it argues that close proximity to violence reinforces highly territorialised subjectivities among barrio residents. Due to the suspicion of outsiders, symbolic violence is reproduced within poorer zones, as localised patterns of alterity create a pervasive culture of mistrust. At the same time, barrio residents also endeavour to strengthen social ties built on familiarity and trust, meaning that kinship links in particular are imbued with heightened ethical significance. The paper will explore how this co-existence between mistrust and solidarity intersects with state discourses concerning security and insecurity, and will analyse how residents manage contradictory views of both the state and themselves as they strategise against violence.

Author

• Matt Wilde, London School of Economics and Political Science