In Harm's Way: The Dynamics of Urban Violence

Arquitecto Tucci, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires, is a place where crushing poverty and violent crime are everyday realities. Homicides—often involving young people—continue to skyrocket, and in the emergency room there, victims of shootings or knifings are an all-too-common sight. In Harm's Way takes 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 María 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 violence—be it criminal, drug related, sexual, or domestic—overlap, 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 Way is destined to become a classic work on violence at the urban margins.

About the Author :
Javier Auyero is the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Professor in Latin American Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. His books include Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina and Routine Politics and Violence in Argentina: The Gray Zone of State Power. Maria Fernanda Berti is an elementary school teacher in Buenos Aires.

Review :
"Winners of the 2016 Robert E. Park Award, Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association" "A heartbreaking picture of the normalization of violence among even the most innocent of subjects, treated with dignity and without romanticization--just as one would expect from an expert team able to combine scholarly distance with personal compassion in the study of such harsh realities."---Diane E. Davis, Latin American Research Review "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 dwellers. As with good books, this one also inspires reflection and questions, perhaps for future research."---Cecilia Menjívar, American Journal of Sociology "The authors provide a much-needed window upon a messy and brutal urban front line for those of us who would rather stay at home."---GO'T, Latin American Review of Books