Downtown Juárez : underworlds of violence and abuse / Howard Campbell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Campbell, Howard, 1957- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Violence--Mexico--Ciudad Juárez.

Violence.

Drug traffic--Social aspects--Mexico--Ciudad Juárez.

Drug traffic.

Street life--Mexico--Ciudad Juárez.

Street life.

Bars (Drinking establishments)--Social aspects--Mexico--Ciudad Juárez.

Bars (Drinking establishments).

Brothels--Social aspects--Mexico--Ciudad Juárez.

Brothels.

Violence--Mexico--Ciudad Juárez--History.

History.

Social aspects.

Bars (Drinking establishments)--Social aspects.

Drug traffic--Social aspects.

Ciudad Juárez (Mexico)--Social conditions.

Ciudad Juárez (Mexico).

Social conditions.

Mexico--Ciudad Juárez.

Mexico.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

vi, 245 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2021.

Summary:

"Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico is still one of the most violent cities in the world. It is the Mexican community most affected by the Mexican "drug war." The drug war is not an officially declared war but a roughly fifteen-year period of massacres, gun battles, assassinations, and other crimes that have claimed about 200,000 lives and left 30,000 people missing. The main participants in these conflicts include drug cartels, gangs, the Mexican military, police forces, and common criminals. At present, there is no indication that this war is slowing down nationally or in Juárez. This book is an ethnographic study concerned with all of the above, as manifested in the violence and moral depravity in the bars, streets, brothels, and neighborhoods of downtown Juárez. The central figures are sex workers, addicts, drug dealers, enforcers, bar flies, bar owners, human smugglers, migrants, unemployed or underemployed workers, expatriates, street vendors, and others who make their living hustling in the streets and along the borderline. Through oral histories, contemporary interviews, and observations made over a 28-year period of field research, Campbell explores the ways in which violence and abuse play out at the street level in specific cantinas, barrios, brothels, and drug-selling plazas. After critiquing the main theories propounded to explain Mexican "drug violence," Campbell presents his own synthetic theory--"synergistic violence"--which focuses on how violence becomes normalized and naturalized over time (and is not specific to Juárez or Mexico). He then offers chapters about the history of Juárez, and takes the reader on a tour through present-day downtown Juárez. Subsequent chapters are devoted to the bars/brothels where sex and drugs are exchanged, to the violence that comes with life in those bars/brothels, to human smuggling, to a battle between one local gang and the local police, and to one particular sex worker. The final chapter circles back to the theories he introduced at the start of the book, and how they relate to the ethnographies and oral histories of the preceding pages in an Arendt-ian "banality of evil.""-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Borders of the mind

violence in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Synergistic violence and the normalization of violence in a border context

The bridge: concentrations of power, economic exchange, and transnational humanity

The historical roots of violence, crime and abuse in downtown Juárez and Colonia Bellavista

Colonia Bellavista today

Avenida Juárez today

Prostitution and sex workers in the downtown street scene

Contemporary gay pick-up scenes and danger in downtown Juárez

Border bar life: an introduction

A place without limits: inebriation and dehumanization at The Club

The dark side of Juárez man caves: the boozy routine of life, sex and drug deals and abuses, and a Juárez-based philosophy of masculine nihilism

Bars as sites and staging areas for the drug business and other petty crimes: hanging out in the 69 Lounge, waiting for something to happen

Downtown bars as locations of both pleasure and victimization: sex, drugs and extortion at El Antro

Downtown bars and criminality: human smugglers and cross-border drug smugglers in central Juárez

Everyday drug dealers in downtown Juárez

Human perseverance amidst recurring "drug wars"

The naturalization of "drug violence": hitmen and drug killings

Paloma makes a life in the downtown bars: survival amid crime, violence, drugs, and sexual abuse

Conclusion: Synergistic violence and the cycle of victimization on the border.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Campbell, Howard, 1957- Downtown Juárez.

ISBN:

9781477323885

1477323880

9781477323892

1477323899

OCLC:

1221015730