果冻影院

Ricardo Marten's thesis is that spatial violence in Jua虂rez emerges through a systemic malfunction of governance that has facilitated its development into an ongoing space of social, political and territorial fracture.

The region of Jua虂rez, right at the border between the United States and Mexico, is a dynamic,聽global industrial hub and one of聽the most dangerous areas in the planet. If violence is understood as a聽fundamental part of the great economy of world history, it helps explains聽the incongruity that characterises the region: a booming productive area聽operating聽in聽a highly coveted criminal territory.聽The recent history of violence that has plagued Jua虂rez is not the result of a specific set聽of events, but聽is instead聽an outstanding period in an otherwise continuous trajectory of social聽turbulence that has intensified at different points in over a聽century. Although illustrative of Mexico鈥檚聽endemic socio-political dysfunction, the case of Jua虂rez鈥檚聽region is also聽the culmination of a convoluted continental assemblage that, precisely at this point聽颅鈥撀燼t this territory鈥� reaches a formidable聽physical end, the border with the United States.

His thesis describes, contextualises and analyses the story of spatial violence in Jua虂rez in its聽recent past. It relies on a theoretical construction聽of spatial violence 鈥攖aking elements from Foucault, Agamben and Latin聽American scholars聽concerned with contemporary urban violence, to show how Jua虂rez became a paradigm of聽the聽complex and burdensome consequences of politically motivated, unchecked violence. Pressured by its own border dynamic, the Jua虂rez region has remained compromised by an聽entrenched spatial contestation,聽imprinted with the grotesque effects of extreme violence and the聽convoluted codes that have allowed it to happen 鈥搕hrough聽politics, planning and, in the last decade,聽a gruesome low-intensity war.

This is a case of a territory in flux that has taken form聽through juridical聽shape-shifting (in international treaties and agreements that have affected the border itself), and the聽spatial no-mans-land of contested sovereignties 鈥搕hose which emerge when the administrative聽jurisdictions that define countries, states and聽local regions, clash with the temporal regimes of聽power that distort and appropriate these 鈥榣ines鈥� outside of the rule of law.