Organized by the Postcolonial Hierarchies Network and Contested Governance Cluster at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute (ABI) and Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS)
Violence in Mexico: Modernity, Inequality, and the City
A dialogue with Dr. Diane Davis (Harvard University) and Dr. Gema Kloppe-Santamaría (FRIAS/Loyola University Chicago), moderated by Dr. Alke Jenss (ABI)
Freiburg/Online // 4th May, 2022 // 6 pm (CET) // This event is in english.
Mexico has seen a dramatic escalation in violence during the last decade. We have all heard of so-called cartels, shoot-outs between state and criminal forces in some cities, but also cooperation between police and organized crime. But what if we look beyond the graphic depictions and simple stories of crime, and connect violence in cities in the past and present?
Diane Davis and Gema Kloppe-Santamaría will discuss patterns of urban violence and inequality in 20th and 21st century Mexico. Based on their extensive research, the panelists will reflect on the ways in which different actors - from politicians, urban planners, and members of the police - have added to the makings of social and political hierarchies between formal and informal, modern and backward, law-abiding and lawbreaker citizens in Mexico. The creation of such hierarchies, mediated as they are by dynamics of economic exclusion and criminalization, have historically undermined urban governance with long-lasting and detrimental effects that continue to be felt in Mexico's democracy. The panelis will stress how citizens respond to violence and inequality in varied and creative ways, and how their responses intersect or contradict state-sponsored forms of harm and economic exclusion.
Photography: © Andrea Leopardi (Unsplash)
We would like you to register at: