In Harm's Way The Dynamics of Urban Violence [Paperback]

Arquitecto Tucci, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires, is a place where crushing poverty and violent crime are everyday realities. Homicidesoften involving young peoplecontinue to skyrocket, and in the emergency room there, victims of shootings or knifings are an all-too-common sight.In Harm's Waytakes a harrowing look at daily life in Arquitecto Tucci, examining the sources, uses, and forms of interpersonal violence among the urban poor at the very margins of Argentine society.

Drawing on more than two years of immersive fieldwork, sociologist Javier Auyero and Mar?a Berti, an elementary school teacher in the neighborhood, provide a powerful and disarmingly intimate account of what it is like to live under the constant threat of violence. They argue that being physically aggressive becomes a habitual way of acting in poor and marginalized communities, and that violence is routine and carries across various domains of public and private life. Auyero and Berti trace how different types of violencebe it criminal, drug related, sexual, or domesticoverlap, intersect, and blur together. They show how the state is complicit in the production of harm, and describe the routines and relationships that residents, particularly children, establish to cope with and respond to the constant risk that besieges them and their loved ones.

Provocative, eye-opening, and extraordinarily moving,In Harm's Wayis destined to become a classic work on violence at the urban margins.

"Winners of the 2016 Robert E. Park Award, Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association"Javier Auyerois professor of Latin American sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.Mar?a Fernanda Bertiis an elementary school teacher in Buenos Aires. An important ethnography that, with a focus on social relations and not on individuals, meaningfully advances our understandings of violence and the lives of impoverished dwelllC%