CEDLA Workshop Violence, Crime, and Public Security in Latin America

CEDLA Workshop: Violence, Crime, and Public Security in Latin America
Kees Koonings & José Luiz Ratton (Organizers)

The workshop will analyze and debate current trends in (criminal) violence and (in)security in Latin America. This subject has been in the forefront of social science research on Latin America (and the Caribbean) for more than a decade. Recently, however, the urgency of the problem has again been brought to the attention of scholars and practitioners, among others by the publication of the 2013 UNDP Regional Human Security Report focusing on Citizen Security and the 2015 world wide ranking of ‘lethal cities’ by the Mexican think tank Seguridad, Justicia y Paz: among the 50 most lethal cities of 300,000 inhabitants or more in the world in 2015, 41 are located in Latin America, 21 of which are Brazilian cities and towns. (One city on the list, Kingston, is in the non-Spanish speaking Caribbean.) Apart from homicide rates, other evidence (such as victimization surveys and a growing body of ethnographic work) on crime, violence and insecurity points at the ongoing and counterintuitive Latin American paradox of violence and insecurity combined with relative democratic stability, interstate peace, and (modest but real) reduction of poverty and inequality. This violence and insecurity is overwhelmingly urban. Apart from generating complex problems in national societies and (urban) communities, violence and insecurity pose specific challenges for analysis and intervention. In the case of Brazil, this has become particularly salient given the organization of sportive mega-events in 2014 and 2016.

In the workshop we will focus on three dimensions: the dynamics and impact of violence and criminality, especially in cities and urban spaces; policing; public security policies and the democratic state. The workshop will have the form of a round table expert meeting, with the presence of a select public of scholars, policy makers and graduate students/PhD researchers.

Workshop Programme
Venue: UvA REC – JK, Room 1.19, Valckenierstraat 65-67, Amsterdam

09:30 – Arrival and coffee
09:45 – Opening by Michiel Baud (director of CEDLA)
10:00-12:00 – Morning session: Crime, violence, and (in)security governance
José Luiz Ratton (Federal University of Pernambuco and CEDLA/University of Amsterdam): Drug markets and violence in Brazil: the case of Recife
Graham Denyer Willis (University of Cambridge): Bureaucratic rationality and violence: everyday logics of public administration and security in São Paulo
Julienne Weegels (CEDLA/University of Amsterdam): The politics of refusal: sewn mouths and prison riots in Nicaragua
12:00-13:00 – Lunch break
13:00-15:00 – Afternoon session I: Policing crime and insecurity
Jacqueline Sinhoretto (Federal University of São Carlos): Policing and racial relations in Brazil
Paul Hathazy (Conicet, Argentina): Changing policing and the reshaping of public security policy in Chile
Marie-Louise Glebbeek (Utrecht University): Policing and (in)security in Central America, especially Guatemala
15:15-16:30 – Afternoon session II: Security governance, democracy, and the state
Rivke Jaffe (University of Amsterdam): Pluralizing Security and Citizenship in Kingston, Jamaica
Kees Koonings (CEDLA/University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University) & Dirk Kruijt (Utrecht University): Criminal governance, violent pluralism, and public security
16:30-17:00 – Closing debate: Trends in violence and directions for public security policies in Latin America: do they match?
17:00 – Drinks

Documentary Screening – Thursday 7 July 2016 – 15:30 p.m.
Venue: UvA REC – JK, Room 1.19, Valckenierstraat 65-67, Amsterdam

As a prelude to the workshop CEDLA will host a screening of the documentary Fighting for Peace (2015; 72 min.) by Joost van der Valk and Mags Gavan. The documentary portrays two boys from a favela in Rio de Janeiro who through boxing try to provide a livelihood for their families and deal with the risks of living in the favela.

15:30 – Fighting for Peace
16:45 – Q&A with filmmaker Joost van der Valk
17:15 – Drinks