Violence and Territory Design. The Denied Relationship in Contemporary Latin American Economy

Abstract

Based on the assumption that violence is one of the most urgent issues of our time -and going against the common sense that tries to explain it to stop it or to conjure it, but not to understand it- this text studies the ways in which it operates in social life of the twenty-first century, to explain its reiteration and its functioning as part of the hegemonic project. Paying special attention to the Latin American reality. This is not a mismatch of civilized life, noran anomie. Violence is structural in social life, plays a strategic role in the definition of contemporary cultural achievements. Violence is a reality of multiple levels, with different rhythms and with different scales. This project tries to start from its material dimension, the most directly linked to economic processes, to move towards its cultural and symbolic dimensions. Trying to understand the complexity of the phenomenon requires an analytical cross-section, which addresses the strategic conditions of economic reproduction and the significant levels of the process (the culture of violence) and its role in the production of territorialities.