Il limbo urbano: conflitti territoriali, violenza e banditismo giovanile a Città del Guatemala

In this research I will analyze some conflictive and socio-political dimensions that have generated a peculiar spatial structure in a specific ethnographic context: Guatemala City. In so doing, I will delineate a neoliberal social ecology of the capital influenced and designed by a “culture of terror”. The principal intersections of this social ecology are three urban spaces: the slums, the prisons and the gated communities. I spent ten months in the field, doing an ethnographic study in each of the three spaces listed above. I will demonstrate how the organization of these spaces are firmly related to some “politics of separation” (and contra-politics of resistance) implemented by actors belonging to different social classes. In the last few years some groups have acquired a special role within the social ecology described. These groups are known as the maras, the juvenile gangs of Central America. The maras arise in marginal areas of the city, they are the main targets of the national security politics and they constitute one of the principal justifications of the securitarian anxieties of the urban elite. In this research I want to achieve a sort of logical inversion. I will deconstruct and critically analyze the depicted structure through juvenile gangs. I will use one of the social phenomena most employed by public opinion, politicians and the punitive apparatus of the State to justify the structure depicted in a opposite way. Certainly, I do not want to defend Central American gangs and their violence. Instead, I will try to understand them. Using a large amount of literature referring to anthropology of violence, urban segregation, gangs and juvenile deviance, I will illustrate the socio-spatial structure of Guatemala City. I will compare the results of the research with other social contexts (especially from the United Stated and Latin America), connecting the ethnographic analysis with more broad reflections and considering regional historical processes and macro-structural factors.