Una aproximación a la determinación social de la violencia urbana en ciudades latinoamericanas: lecturas desde Río de Janeiro y Bogotá

Abstract

This essay is based on a critique of the partial analyzes of urban violence in Latin America and proposes an approach to what we understand as processes of social determination of urban violence from an introductory reading of the configuration of urban violence in Bogotá and Rio de Janeiro. We argue that violence, and particularly lethal violence, does not happen randomly, nor is it an isolated event, but it reflects the social, historical and territorially configured conflict that marks Latin American societies, which is why it is necessary to recognize and entail in the processes that produce and reproduce it. The proposal that we developed in this essay distances itself from individualizing and naturalizing readings of (urban) violence, as well as distances itself from an understanding of Latin American cities as intrinsically problematic, proposing a "denaturalization" of the territorial and social (des) ordering of Latin American cities for legal and illegal endeavors such as drug trafficking and infrastructure megaprojects that have shaped unhealthy processes and have often involved death, have exacerbated and multiplied violence.