Citizens Against Crime and Violence: Societal Responses in Mexico - Paperback

by Trevor Stack (Editor), Trevor Stack (Contribution by), Irene Álvarez (Contribution by)

Mexico has become notorious for crime-related violence, and the efforts of governments and national and international NGOs to counter this violence have proven largely futile. Citizens against Crime and Violence studies societal responses to crime and violence within one of Mexico's most affected regions, the state of Michoacán. Based on comparative ethnography conducted over twelve months by a team of anthropologists and sociologists across six localities of Michoacán, ranging from the most rural to the most urban, the contributors consider five varieties of societal responses: local citizen security councils that define security and attempt to influence its policing, including by self-defense groups; cultural activists looking to create safe 'cultural' fields from which to transform their social environment; organizations in the state capital that combine legal and political strategies against less visible violence (forced disappearance, gender violence, anti-LGBT); church-linked initiatives bringing to bear the church's institutionality, including to denounce 'state capture'; and women's organizations creating 'safe' networks allowing to influence violence prevention.

Author Biography

TREVOR STACK is a professor at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom, where he serves as the director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society, and Rule of Law. He is the author of Knowing History in Mexico: An Ethnography of Citizenship, the co-editor of Religion as a Category of Governance and Sovereignty, and co-editor of Breaching the Civil Order: Radicalism and the Civil Sphere.