Antípoda. Revista de Antropología y Arqueología

Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol | eISSN 2011-4273 | ISSN 1900-5407

Interwoven Forms of Violence in Latin America

No. 62 (2026-01-09)
https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda62.2026.01

Abstract

This article proposes a new conceptual framework for examining how extreme forms of violence in the region have unfolded simultaneously and/or in accumulated, sequential ways from the late twentieth century to the present. Its central aim is to conceptualize interwoven violences as an analytical tool capable of integrating gendered, economic, structural, and environmental violences—moving beyond the fragmentation that characterizes traditional studies and foregrounding how these violences take shape materially and symbolically on bodies and territories. The methodology is documentary in nature and consists of a critical bibliographic review informed by the authors’ experience as specialists in the field, reinforced by an exhaustive search for recent research (2015–2025) on enforced disappearances, feminicides, and massacres in Latin America. The analysis prioritizes empirically grounded studies—ethnographies, interviews, and content analyses—that make it possible to grasp the complexity and multiplicity of these forms of violence. The article concludes that, although there is a robust body of empirical and theoretical work on extreme and mass violence, most of it remains specialized and compartmentalized, making it difficult to identify the interconnections among different forms of harm. What the article argues, therefore, is that understanding violence in Latin America requires a relational and interdisciplinary approach that reveals the intersections among structural inequality, gendered violence, forced displacement, and environmental devastation, placing victims and collective forms of resistance at the center of the analysis. The originality of the article lies in explicitly conceptualizing the phenomenon of interwoven violences—a gap in the existing literature—and in positioning both the article and the dossier as theoretical and methodological contributions that bring empirical and conceptual perspectives into dialogue.

Keywords: Extreme violence, interwoven violences, Latin America, structural violence, symbolic violence

References

Agamben, Giorgio. 1998. Homo sacer: el poder soberano y la nuda vida. Valencia: Pre-Textos.

Almanza Avendaño, Ariagor Manuel, Anel Hortensia Gómez San Luis y Sergio Cáceres Becerra. 2025. “Emerging Emotions in Face of the Necropower of Organized Crime: Between Domination and Agency”. Emotion, Space and Society 54: 101066, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2025.101066

Anstett, Élisabeth y Jean-Marc Dreyfus, eds. 2015. Human Remains and Identification: Mass Violence, Genocide, and the “Forensic Turn”. Manchester: Manchester University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wn0s24

Anstett, Élisabeth y Jean-Marc Dreyfus, eds. 2014. Destruction and Human Remains: Disposal and Concealment in Genocide and Mass Violence. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Arias, Enrique Desmond y Ximena Tocornal Montt. 2018. “Social Disorganisation and Neighbourhood Effects in Latin America”. En Social Theories of Urban Violence in the Global South, editado por Jennifer Erin Salahub, Markus Gottsbacher y John de Boer, 121-138. Londres: Routledge.https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351254724-8

Auyero, Javier. 2015. “The Politics of Interpersonal Violence in the Urban Periphery”. Current Anthropology 56 (S11): S169–S179. https://doi.org/10.1086/681435

Auyero, Javier, Philippe Bourgois y Nancy Scheper-Hughes, eds. 2015. Violence at the Urban Margins. Nueva York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190221447.001.0001

Balibar, Étienne. 2009. “Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Anthropology”. Differences 20 (2-3): 9-35. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-2009-002

Bernasconi, Oriana. 2019. Resistance to Political Violence in Latin America: Documenting Atrocity. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17046-2

Birman, Patricia, Márcia Pereira Leite, Carly Machado y Sandra de Sá Carneiro, orgs. 2015. Dispositivos urbanos e trama dos viventes: ordens e resistências. Río de Janeiro: Editora FGV.

Blair, Elsa. 2004. “Mucha sangre y poco sentido: la masacre. Por un análisis antropológico de la violencia”. Boletín de Antropología 18 (35): 165-184. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.boan.6968

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. La domination masculine. París: Éditions du Seuil.

Caldeira, Teresa Pires do Rio. 2001. City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Calveiro, Pilar. 1998. Poder y desaparición: los campos de concentración en Argentina. Buenos Aires: Colihue.

Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 2017. On Intersectionality: Essential Writings. Nueva York: The New Press.

Das, Veena, Arthur Kleinman, Margaret Lock y Mamphela, Ramphele, eds. 2001. Remaking a World: Violence, Social Suffering and Recovery. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.8501074

Davis, Diane E. 2006. “The Age of Insecurity: Violence and Social Disorder in the New America”. Latin American Research Review 41 (1): 178-197. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lar.2006.0005

De Lachica Huerta, Fabiola. 2023. “Lugares violentados. Modificaciones a los usos y significados de espacios cotidianos en contextos de violencia”. Revista Colombiana de Sociología 46 (2) 343-363. https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v46n2.101572

Dépelteau, François. 2018. The Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology. Nueva York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Díaz, Paola. 2014. “L’expérience publique des crimes du passé: Le cas du Chili post-dictadure (1990-2004)”. Tesis doctoral, Sociología, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, París. https://theses.fr/2014EHES0011

Díaz, Paola y Carolina Gutiérrez Ruiz. 2008. “Resistencias en dictadura y en post-dictadura: la acción colectiva de la agrupación de familiares de detenidos desaparecidos en Chile”. Pandora: Revue d’Etudes Hispaniques 8: 187-204. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2925972

Farmer, Paul. 2004. “An Anthropology of Structural Violence”. Current Anthropology 45 (3): 305–325. https://doi.org/10.1086/382250

Farmer, Paul. 2003. Pathologies of Power. Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Fassin, Didier. 2025. Leçons de ténèbres. Ce que la violence dit du monde. París: La Découverte.

Fassin, Didier y Richard Rechtman. 2009. The Empire of Trauma. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Fein, Helen. 1993. Genocide: A Sociological Perspective. Londres: Sage.

Felman, Shoshana y Dori Laub. 1992. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. Nueva York; Londres: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203700327

Feltran, Gabriel. 2020. The Entangled City: Crime as Urban Fabric in São Paulo. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Ferrándiz, Francisco. 2014. El pasado bajo tierra: exhumaciones contemporáneas de la Guerra Civil. Barcelona: Anthropos.

Foucault, Michel. 2004. Naissance de la biopolitique. París: Hautes Études; Gallimard; Seuil.

Galtung, Johan. 1969. “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research”. Journal of Peace Research 6 (3): 167-191. https://doi.org/10.1177/002234336900600301

Garriga Zucal, José. 2010. “‘Se lo merecen’. Definiciones morales del uso de la fuerza física entre los miembros de la policía bonaerense”. Cuadernos de Antropología Social 32: 75-94. https://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index.php/CAS/article/view/1429

Gatti, Gabriel. 2014. Surviving Forced Disappearance in Argentina and Uruguay: Identity and Meaning. Nueva York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hobsbawm, Eric. 1998. Historia del siglo XX. Buenos Aires: Crítica.

Human Rights Watch. 2025. “Israel and Palestine. Events of 2024”. Human Rights Watch, Annual Report 2025. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/israel-and-palestine

Jelin, Elizabeth. 2007. “Víctimas, familiares y ciudadanos/as: las luchas por la legitimidad de la palabra”. Cadernos Pagu 29: 37-60. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-83332007000200003

Jimeno, Myriam. 2011. “Después de la masacre: la memoria como conocimiento histórico”. Cuadernos de Antropología Social 33: 39-52. https://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index.php/CAS/article/view/1416

Jones, Adam. 2024. Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. Londres: Routledge

Kaufman, Susana G. 2022. “Violencia y testimonio. Notas sobre subjetividad y los relatos posibles”. Clepsidra. Revista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios sobre Memoria 1 (1): 100-113. https://revistas.ides.org.ar/clepsidra/article/view/477

Kleinman, Arthur, Veena Das y Margaret Lock, eds. 1997. Social Suffering. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Koonings, Kee y Dirk Kruijt, eds. 2007. Fractured Cities: Social Exclusion, Urban Violence and Contested Spaces in Latin America. Londres: Bloomsbury.

Lerchundi, Mariana Jésica. 2020. “La violencia policial como mensaje: un abordaje desde la experiencia de jóvenes de Latinoamerica”. Hallazgos 17 (34): 23-54. https://doi.org/10.15332/2422409X.5488

Lima, Antonio Carlos de Souza y Virginia García-Acosta, orgs. 2014. Margens da violência. Subsídios ao estudio do problema da violencia nos contextos mexicano e brasileiro. Brasília: ABA Publicações; Ciesas. https://portal.abant.org.br/publicacoes/publicacao/76

Machado da Silva, Luiz Antonio, ed. 2008. Vida sob cerco: violência e rotina nas favelas do Rio de Janeiro. Río de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira.

Mbembe, Achille. 2003. “Necropolitics”. Public Culture 15 (1): 11-40. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-15-1-11

Melenotte, Sabrina. 2017. “Autopsia de una matanza: el destino de los cuerpos femeninos muertos en Acteal (22/12/1997)”. Trace 72: 75-97. https://doi.org/10.22134/trace.72.2017.94

Moses, A. Dirk. 2021. The Problems of Genocide: Permanente Security and the Language of Transgression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316217306

Moser, Caroline O N. 2004. “Urban Violence and Insecurity: An Introductory Roadmap”. Environment and Urbanization 16 (2): 3-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/095624780401600220

Nixon, Rob. 2013. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Pearce, Jenny. 2010. “Perverse State Formation and Securitized Democracy in Latin America”. Democratization 17 (2): 286-306. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510341003588716

Penglase, Ben. 2014. Living with Insecurity in a Brazilian Favela: Urban Violence and Daily Life. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Pérez, Pilar. 2019. “La Conquista del desierto y los estudios sobre genocidios. Recorridos, preguntas y debates”. Memoria Americana 27 (2): 34-51. https://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index.php/MA/article/view/7160

Pita, María Victoria. 2010. Formas de morir y formas de vivir: el activismo contra la violencia policial. Buenos Aires: Editores del Puerto; Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS).

Rodgers, Dennis. 2004. “‘Disembedding’ the City: Crime, Insecurity and Spatial Organization in Managua, Nicaragua”. Environment and Urbanization 16 (2): 113-124. https://doi.org/10.1177/095624780401600202

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy y Philippe Bourgois, eds. 2004. Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. Nueva York: Blackwell.

Segato, Rita Laura. 2016. La guerra contra las mujeres. Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños. https://traficantes.net/libros/la-guerra-contra-las-mujeres

Semelin, Jacques. 2003. “Toward a Vocabulary of Massacre and Genocide”. Journal of Genocide Research 5 (2): 193-210. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520305660

Tyner, James A. 2016. Violence in Capitalism: Devaluing Life in an Age of Responsibility. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1d988j8

Ungar, Mark. 2007. “The Privatization of Citizen Security in Latin America: From Elite Guards to Neighborhood Vigilantes”. Social Justice 34 (3–4): 20-37. https://www.jstor.org/stable/29768462

Uribe, María Victoria. 1990. “Matar, rematar y contramatar: las masacres de la violencia en el Tolima 1948-1946”. Revista Controversia 159-160: 27-203. https://revistacontroversia.com/index.php/controversia/article/view/1143