This book is the result of two years of participatory and Human Security action-oriented research into dynamics of insecurity and violence in modern-day Mexico. The wide-ranging Human Security and chapters in this collection offer a serious reflection of an innovative co-construction with residents from some of the most affected communities that resulted in diagno- Chronic Violence PUBLIC ses of local security challenges and their impacts on indi- POLITICS vidual and collective wellbeing. The book also goes on to in Mexico present a series of policy proposals that aim to curtail the New Perspectives and Proposals from Below reproduction of violence in its multiple manifestations. The methodological tools and original policy proposals Gema Kloppe-Santamaría • Alexandra Abello Colak presented here can help to enable a radical rethink of re- Editors sponses to the crisis of insecurity in Mexico and the wider Latin American region. Human Security and Chronic Violence Human Security and Chronic Violence in Mexico New Perspectives and Proposals from Below Human Security and Chronic Violence in Mexico New Perspectives and Proposals from Below Gema Kloppe-Santamaría • Alexandra Abello Colak Editors MEXICO 2019 This is a peer-reviewed scholarly research supported by the co-editor publisher. 364.20972 S4567 Human Security and Chronic Violence in Mexico: New Perspectives and Proposals from Below / edited by Gema Kloppe-Santamaría and Alexandra Abello Colak -- 1st edition -- Mexico : Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México : Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 2019. Electronic resource (299 p.) -- (Public Policies) ISBN 978-607-524-296-5 Violence -- Mexico. 2. Crime Prevention -- Mexico. 3. Public Security -- Mexico. 4. Public Policies – Mexico Research supported by the Fondo de Cooperación Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología (FONCICYT) First edition, December 2019 © 2019 Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México © 2019 Miguel Ángel Porrúa, bookshop-editor For typography and editorial design Reserved copyrights according to the law ISBN 978-607-524-296-5 Translation by Ambar Geerts Cover: Image created by the editor’s design team No part of this book may be reproduced partially or totally, directly or indirectly, without the prior written or explicit authorization of according to the terms designated by Mexico’s Federal Law of Author’s Rights or by the applicable international laws. www.maporrua.com.mx Amargura 4, San Ángel, Álvaro Obregón, 01000, Ciudad de México Table of contents Introduction. A conceptual and empirical contribution to resignify security in Mexico Jenny Pearce ‘From below’: A methodology and orientation for researching violences Reconceptualising violence and humanising security Humanised and human security Learning through listening and exchanging knowledges: Introduction to the case study chapters Chronic violence, trauma and the inter-generational cycles of violence Resignifying security in Mexico: Detail, place and space Agency and human security to reduce violences in Mexico Works consulted Chapter 1 Co-constructing security “from below”: A methodology to rethink and transform security in contexts of chronic violence Alexandra Abello Colak and Jenny Pearce Introduction Security “from below”: Guidelines for the production of knowledge with communities in contexts of chronic violence Human security agendas in Mexico: Deconstructing their co-construction The difficulties of co-construction in Mexico Works consulted 5 6 Alejandro Cerda García Chapter 2 Beyond the war on drugs: Violence and security in Mexico Cecilia Farfán Méndez The Mexican State vs. drug trafficking organisations Conflicts between drug trafficking organisations Beyond the war on drugs: Invisible violences Conclusion Works consulted Chapter 3 Narratives of violence in the Sánchez Taboada neighbourhood, Tijuana: Between abandonment and active citizenship Nohora Constanza Niño Vega, Luis Antonio Flores Flores, Brenda Raquel Cortez Velásquez Introduction The history of a city swept by criminal violence Making sense of the violence in the Sánchez Taboada neighbourhood Violences and insecurity from below Insecurity in a context of abandonment: Relations with the state Co-constructing proposals from below Final considerations Works consulted Chapter 4 Moving uphill: Social violence, marginalisation, and the co-construction of a security agenda in Nuevo Almaguer Paulina Badillo, Nohemí Gallegos, Juan Salgado, Karely Samaniego Introduction The development of violence in Guadalupe/Nuevo Almaguer Chronic violence and human insecurity in Nuevo Almaguer Response and intervention analysis Proposals from below Conclusions Works consulted 7 Chapter 5 See, hear, and be quiet: Chronic violence in Apatzingán and the need for human security constructed from below Luz Laura Parra Rosales, Eduardo David Pérez Lara, Julio César Franco Gutiérrez, Alan Pavel Vallejo Chavarría Apatzingán’s long history of violence and insecurity Assessment of violence and insecurity from below Progressive trauma: Most apparent consequences of chronic violence Institutional factors that enable chronic violence and progressive trauma Rethinking responses to chronic violence and their impact: Who’s security? Conclusions Works consulted Chapter 6 Research in contexts of violence: Challenges and strategies to co-produce knowledge “from below” and break the silence Armando Rodríguez Luna and Falko Ernst Introduction Problems for journalistic research in Mexico Identification of sources of risk and elaboration of a security protocol Conclusions Works consulted Chapter 7 Obstacles to the formulation of public security policies in Mexico. An opportunity to include the voices of the communities Catheryn Camacho Introduction Main problems in the formulation of public security policies in Mexico Obstacles to community participation Opportunities for citizen participation in the debate and design of public security policies Reflections on human security agendas constructed from below Works consulted Conclusions. Rethinking violence and insecurity in Mexico: key lessons of co-constructing security from below Gema Kloppe-Santamaría and Rafael Fernández de Castro Diagnosis from below: speaking of “violences” in the plural form Making sense of violence: the shortcuts and traps of insecurity Political life and culture at the local level: the intermittent presence of the state and patterns of clientelism Co-construction: creating spaces to rethink violence and to act About the authors Alan Pavel Vallejo Chavarría Alexandra Abello Colak Armando Rodríguez Luna Brenda Raquel Cortez Velázquez Catheryn Camacho Cecilia Farfán Méndez Cristina Nohemí Gallegos González Eduardo David Pérez Lara Elvia Paulina Badillo García Falko Ernst Gema Kloppe-Santamaría Jenny Pearce Juan Salgado Julio César Franco Gutiérrez Luis Antonio Flores Flores Luz Paula Parra Rosales Nayla Karely Samaniego Salinas Nohora Constanza Niño Vega Rafael Fernández de Castro Introduction. A conceptual and empirical contribution to resignify security in Mexico Jenny Pearce This book is the outcome of a methodological response to the challenge of researching multiple forms of violence in Latin America and in Mexico in particular, aiming to simultaneously generate action to reduce them. It has roots in an academic discussion around the mutations of violence in post authoritarian and post civil war regions of Latin America, and their relation- ship (or not) to old and new forms of criminality. At the same time, it emerges from histories of community activism and organization in the face of complex problems of violence and criminality. These two (conceptual and empirical) sources of methodological innovation have resulted in efforts, narrated in this book, to construct a genuine dialogue of knowledges be- tween academy and community, aimed at better understanding violence, the logics of its reproduction and to generate proposals for security policies that reduce it. This methodological response is also rooted, therefore, in Latin Ameri- ca’s history of participatory action research. In that sense, it has an orienta- tion towards research that also contributes to addressing problems and their origins together with those who live them. This is why we talk about a methodology that ‘co-constructs’ knowledge with those experiencing the realities of violence and crime in their everyday lives, but who have very limited influence on the policies to address them. This is the meaning of ‘from below’. This introduction to this volume will first explain a little more what is meant by ‘from below’ in practice, before clarifying the concepts that frame the research and which have simultaneously been explored through it. It will discuss two concepts (‘Human Security’ and ‘Chronic Violence’) 9 10 Alejandro Cerda García which have been particularly crucial to the research and why and how they have informed it and been informed by it. It will then draw out some of the key ways in which each chapter of this book throws further light on these concepts and their potential relevance to rethinking the security crisis in Mexico and beyond. ‘From below’: A methodology and orientation for researching violences While it may seem counterintuitive to use participatory methods in contexts of extreme violence, the logics are in fact quite clear, without downplaying the risks.1 Violence limits space for individual and social action, but at the same time it provokes a yearning for ‘action’. At times this takes the form of support for repressive and punitive interventions to establish an ‘order’