Urban Insecurity as a Language of Political Contention in Madrid (Spain)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v2i6.129Keywords:
Urban, Insecurity in Spain, Fear and Public, Policy, Aging and CityAbstract
Public policies for urban planning developed since the 1980s in Spanish city centres have been marked by the idea of “refurbishing” areas that are “in crisis.” The discourse of citizens’ insecurity has become the framework of shared meaning for diagnosing problems, as well as for legitimizing policies. Using an ethnographic analysis carried out in a central Madrid neighbourhood, I will analyze how the experience of insecurity of one sector of the residents, which is shaped in the framework of the general discourse of citizen insecurity, is, however, rooted in a specific life trajectory that indicates socio-cultural and economic keys that have little to do with the causes of insecurity that the hegemonic discourse continually indicates. More generally, I hope to show, with this case study, how anthropological analyses can contribute to the evaluation of public urban policies.
Downloads
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
