From "making toast" to "splitting apples": dissecting "care" in the midst of chronic

violence
Author(s): Javier Auyero and Kristine Kilanski
Source: Theory and Society , October 2015, Vol. 44, No. 5 (October 2015), pp. 393-414
Published by: Springer

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 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414 flWsMark
DOI 10.1007/sl 1186-015-9255-6 w

From "making toast" t

dissecting "care" in the

Javier Auyero1 • Kristine Kilan

Published online: 7 June 2015

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract Scholarship has tended to focus on the deleterious impacts of chronic

exposure to violence, to the detriment of understanding how residents living in
dangerous contexts care for themselves and one another. Drawing on 30 months of
ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines two sets of practices that residents
exercise in the name of protecting themselves and their loved ones. The first set
("making toast") includes the mundane, "small acts," - often embedded in routine -
that residents draw on in an effort to form connections and create order in a funda-
mentally chaotic and stressful environment. The second set ("splitting apples") involves
the teaching and exercise of violence in the name of protecting daughters and sons from
further harm. Using interviews and field notes, we argue that both sets of practices,
when viewed in situ, reveal an "ethics of care." Resisting the urge to either romanticize
or sanitize these efforts, we engage with the difficult question of what it means when an
expression of "care" involves the (re)production of violence, especially against
a loved one.

Keywords Protective carework • Family violence • Argentina • Violence in Latin

America • Urban ethnography

Decades of research have established the durable and pernicious impact that chronic
exposure to violence has on poor communities (Brennan et al. 2007; Schwab-Stone
et al. 1995). Clark et al. (2008) have dubbed chronic exposure to violence a "mental
health hazard," in reference to its harmful developmental, emotional, and behavioral
impacts on individuals (see also, Farrell et al. 2007; Friday 1995; Holton 1995; Popkin
et al. 2010). Exposure to community violence is strongly associated with post-traumatic

Ē3 Javier Auyero
auyero@austin.utexas.edu
Kristine Kilanski
kristine.kilanski@gmail.com

1 Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin, 305 E. 23rd St. A 1700, Austin,
TX 78712, USA

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 394 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414

stress syndrome (PTSD) symptoms:

sive behavior (Guerra et al. 2003; M
impacts of chronic violence on the
there is strong empirical evidence
psychological adjustment, ability
achievement (Farrell et al. 2007;
Others warn that chronic communi
ing destruction of the infrastructu
need reliable social structures to r
(Gabarino 1993, p. 112), may threat
by teaching them that violence is
(Walton et al. 2009, p. 395). 1
Residents of dangerous communit
exposure to violence poses to thems
their persons, family members, and
so despite the many constraints
sociological and journalistic accoun
variety of ways in which people re
1999; Bourgois 1995; Gay 2005; Ha
2004; Venkatesh 2008), collective o
tism (Ayala and Derpic 2013; Gold
little about the less public, and oft
attempt to prevent violence and pr
the range of strategies that reside
devised in order to cope with the m
unsettle and disrupt their daily live
Our 30 months of ethnographic fi
of responses that residents have d
threatens them. Drawing inspiratio
his efforts to cope with the pain an
untimely death, we refer to the fir
Like Rosenblatt's daily practice of p
in an (largely unconscious) effort t
Ingeniero Budge develop routines, o
despite - and as a way of dealing w
Along with "making toast," other,
lent, strategies for coping amidst
interviews with the residents of I
Sonia (age 41) said during a 2-hour
Budge. "I learned how to kill when
made me practice with an apple, spl
teaches his granddaughter how to ki
mother chains her daughter to her b

1 See the following authors for a discussion

influence individuals' schemes of perception
2009; Contreras 2012).

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Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414 395

addiction (a frequent event in our

not only through routinized beha
through the direct teaching and us
Drawing on the work of anthrop
that the routine and non-routine pr
that involve the deployment of
"ordinary ethics," or the "small d
everyday life to hold life as the
Violence, as many social science ac
1990; Gabarino 1993), shatters and
"small acts [that] allow life to be kn
ethical (here understood
o as a sense
moral striving [Lambek 2010]) lies
essay is to locate, unearth, and dis
sions of care amid a violence that
Adopting neither a romantic nor a
highly dangerous destitute neighb
2002), we engage with the difficul
up (re)producing significant forms
force to discipline their children o
"teach them a lesson." We argue th
be understood and explained with
especially
mothers, face in trying to
extremely precarious conditions.
This scholarly effort is particula
urban Latin America, characterized
Although violence has had a conti
continent (Imbusch et al. 2011), th
manifested and experienced "on t
"has now receded significantly in
2011), many countries across Latin
diverse forms of interpersonal vi
Koonings and Kruijt 2007; Levenso
While street violence, drug-relate
assault are not "new" to the region
scholars agree that interpersona
1990s, becoming one of the defini
Latin America (Arias and Golds
Rodgers 2009; Pearce 2010).
Today's most prevalent forms of v
especially within slums and shanty
Rio de Janeiro, see Gay 2005; P
Managua, see Rodgers 2006; for M
and Thomas 2011). Not surprising
most disadvantaged populations ac
2005), with adolescents and young
and its perpetrators (Imbusch et

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 396 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393^14

centers on the experiences of those li

at the urban margins of Latin Amer
of life" (Rodgers et al. 2012, p. 12).
Below, we provide a description of t
of violence that guides our analysis.
which residents of Ingeniero Budg
sense of the volume and immediacy
itself in their everyday lives. The m
firstpart, we examine the practices,
protect themselves and prevent fur
organize their lives through "maki
practices that, while carried out wi
out of harm's way, involve the perp
the larger implications to the study

Site, methods, and one definitio

Ingeniero Budge (pop. 170,000) sits in

Located adjacent to the banks of the
infrastructural deprivation - or wh
material dimension of state abandon
air sewers, broken sidewalks, scarce
poverty (as measured by unsatisfied
the average of the state.
But the state has not entirely deser
public schools, the Asignación Un
transfer program effective since 20
Trabaja , Plan Vida) mark the state's
of its residents. Patronage network
funded by Catholic charities provid
medicine. Finally, the informal labor
the area; construction, domestic se
frequently reported by the local pop
Together with state assistance, char
of subsistence for the population is t
neighborhood's northern limit. Know
different markets where, twice a w
and small electronics, and food.2
European Union (La Nación , March
the production and commercializat
owners or employees of one of the

2 Although largely unregulated, the state m

property taxes, investigating violations of inte
do not pollute the (adjacent) Riachuelo River (
and workings of these markets, see Hacher (2

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 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414 397

the hundreds of sweatshops that man

the neighborhood benefit from
2011; Girón 2011).
This article is based on 20 formal,
Budge (12 women; 8 men) and, per
conversations and direct observat
team-based ethnographic fieldwork
one research collaborator (Fernanda
teacher in two public schools. This a
Fernanda took based on her student
as on dozens of conversations with
upon information culled from one
catalogue the most common problem
Respondents were recruited via sno
30 min and an hour. We also relied
the office that collects death record
on homicides in the area.
Fieldwork continued more sporadically throughout the second half of 2012 and the
first 3 months of 2013. Over this period, Javier Auyero interviewed doctors at the main
local hospital for more information on injuries and deaths in the area, as well as seven
police agents who work in the area, and a social worker at the local public school. This
author also conducted archival research on local newspapers (all of them accessible
online), focusing on instances of interpersonal violence (injuries in interpersonal
disputes and homicides) between 2009 and 2012 in order to pinpoint the geographic
location of this violence, information not recorded by the Defensoria.
In-depth interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed, and systematically analyzed for
their content using open and focused coding (Emerson et al. 1995). Applying the
evidentiary criteria normally used for ethnographic research (Becker 1958, 1970; Katz
1982, 2001, 2002), higher evidentiary value was assigned to individual acts or patterns
of conduct recounted by many observers than to those recounted by only one observer.
Although particular in their details, the testimonies, field notes, and vignettes selected
below represent behavior observed or heard about with consistent regularity during the
course of our fieldwork.3
For the purposes of this article, we adopt a modified version of the WHO's definition
of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual,
against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in
or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, [or] psychological harm ..." (Krug
et al. 2002, p. 4). In this article, we focus primarily on interpersonal violence.
Interpersonal violence includes family and intimate partner violence (i.e., physical
aggression "between family members and intimate partners, usually, though
not exclusively, taking place in the home" [Krug et al. 2002, p. 5]) and
community violence (i.e., physical aggression "between individuals who are
unrelated, and who may or may not know each other, generally taking place
outside the home" [Krug et al. 2002, p. 5]).

3 The study was approved by University of Texas at Austin IRB (protocol # 2011-05-0126).

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 398 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414

Daily violence

Social and criminal violence has skyrocketed in Buenos Aires metropolitan area
(ODS A 2011). Official data for the province of Buenos Aires shows that the crime
rate in the area doubled between 1995 and 2008, from 1 1 14 to 2010 criminal episodes
per 100,000 residents and from 206 to 535 crimes against persons per 100,000 residents
(DNPC 2008). Reported incidents of sexual and domestic abuse have also increased
during the last two decades (La Nación , February 24, 2008).4 This violence has been
concentrated within squatter settlements, shantytowns, and poor neighborhoods
(Auyero and Berti 2015), like Ingeniero Budge. According to the municipal Defensoria
General, homicides in Ingeniero Budge have increased 180 % since 2007, from a total
number of 17 in that year to 48 between January and October of 2012 (meanwhile the
population of the municipality where Ingeniero Budge is located grew only 4.2 %
between 2001 and 2010). The murder rate in Ingeniero Budge is 28.4 per 100,000
residents - four times that of the state of Buenos Aires. The population of Ingeniero
Budge is roughly 28 % of the total population of the district of Lomas de Zamora
(population 600,000). Out of a total 65 homicides that took place in the district during
2012, 58 % occurred in Ingeniero Budge (CSJN 2013).
In-depth interviews with physicians who work in the emergency rooms at the local
hospital and health center, and with a social worker at the local school, confirm the
sharp growth of interpersonal violence. "Today," says a doctor with 15 years of
experience in the district, "it is much more common to attend to patients with injuries
provoked by gunshots or knives ... at least one per day." The director of the emergency
room at the local hospital seconds this general impression, pointing to a 10 % annual
increase in the number of people wounded by gunshots or knives over the course of the
last decade (heridos por armas de fuego y arma blanca).
A variety of deeply intertwined factors lie at the root of the generalized de-
pacification of Buenos Aires metropolitan area. Growing inequality,
deproletarianization (which deprived poor households of their means of subsistence
and reproduction), informalization, and general degradation in living conditions at the
bottom of the social structure have fostered conditions tightly linked to increased
interpersonal violence (Auyero and Berti 2015). Lacking work in the formal economy,
the drug trade has become an increasingly important source of income for those living
in the most economically distressed regions of the state (Sain 2009). Small bands
devoted to the storage, preparation, and distribution of drugs operate in poor areas,
contributing to the rise in interpersonal violence. Police rarely if ever attempt to tamp
down the drug trade or the violence it spurs, with many viewing drugs as a lucrative
source of additional income (see Sain 2009; see also Auyero and Alcaraz 2013).
Finally, crime in Ingeniero Budge is spurred by the presence of La Salada. A site
where vast amounts of merchandise and money pass hands, the largest informal street
market in South America presents an opportunity for poor and marginalized youth in
the area, who "crushed by the weight of chronic unemployment and underemployment

4 On the diverse forms of violence experienced by the Argentine poor, see Bonaldi and del Cueto (2009); on
fear of crime and perceptions of "inseguridad," see Kessler (2009). It is important to note, however, that
although in the last three decades there has been a significant rise in crime, the overall crime rates in Argentina
remain comparatively low (see UNODC 201 1).

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 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414 399

. . . continue to look to the 'booty

for the means to survive, to obtain
of the masculine ethos of honor
destitution" (Wacquant 2011, p. 96
transformed its adjacent area into
criminal opportunities" or a "hi
1993, p. 11).
Unsurprisingly then, criminal activity and its accompanying violence are two of the
main concerns cited by residents of Ingeniero Budge. An overwhelming majority of our
100 interviewees cite delinquency, insecurity, robberies, and drug dealing as their main
preoccupations. Similarly, shoot-outs, armed robberies, rapes or attempted rapes, and
street fights were routine topics of conversation among the third, fourth, and sixth
graders (aged 8 to 13) at the school where we conducted our fieldwork (for a
description of violence experienced and/or witnessed by children in the neighborhood,
see Auyero and Berti 2013). It was rare for a week to pass without one or more of the
60 children describing a violent event that had recently taken place in their neighbor-
hood or, frequently, their homes.
Although no official figures exist, interviews with social workers and teachers at the
local school suggest that incidents of physical and sexual violence between family
members and intimate partners have increased over the past 10 years. "Violence inside
the family has reached unsuspected levels," one school counselor with two decades of
experience in the area told us. Our field notes attest to the generalized character of this
type of violence: Children frequently recounted their parents' use of violence against
each other and against them. For example, Jonathan (age 13) told us: "My dad fights
with my mother all the time. ... Last time, he nearly killed her."
Sexual violence, in the form of rape and attempted rape, is also quite widespread in
the neighborhood. As elsewhere, girls are more likely to be targeted than boys - in their
homes and on the streets. Students frequently discussed these incidents, too, such as
when one third grader recounted: "My cousin was almost raped yesterday [a few blocks
from the school]. My neighbors went to the home of one of those violines , and kicked
his door down." As Josiana (age 8) matter-of-factly informs us, violines are "those who
make you [have] babies."
Residents of Ingeniero Budge, as it should be clear by now, are exposed to
widespread and diverse forms of violence. Violence is experienced, witnessed, and/or
discussed in homes, schools, and the streets. In the next section we ask how residents
cope with what, they perceive as, "general insecurity."

"Making toast": "small acts" and routinized care

During the course of fieldwork, residents told us repeatedly "there's nothing you can
do" about the widespread violence in their community. Laura (age 51), a long-term
resident, told us: "People here are scared if you do something, they [the perpetrators]
might get you and hit you or your family. They may retaliate." Similarly, Verónica (age
34) told us: "People do not report it to the police because they are scared." During a
community meeting attended by Javier Auyero, most residents seemed to agree that
fear has a demobilizing effect: "There are a lot of people who are angry about all this

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 400 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-^14

insecurity, but they are afraid to c

anything because they are afraid th
here are afraid," they said, "because t
the authorities."5 Fear, residents ag
fear, impotence, and "futility" (Ban
multitude of ways in which the re
exposure to violence for themsel
distance between what people say an
One of the most common response
tion of homes. Like middle class
residents of Ingeniero Budge build w
alleyways, install stronger doors ("s
padlocks to their windows. Not only
when they are at home: They also
away - providing peace of mind tha
remain safe. The following exchan
mid-forties and have adolescent chil

V- This door is not strong enough

doors, in the front and in the back.

M- Yes, I have no problems. I ca

windows. They are very strong. Bu
and take all her stuff away.

Not surprisingly, one common wa

through regular seclusion in the h
world. "I stay in my room, watch T
resident. "Right after dinner, we a
street market is open, there are man
a gun, and they might shoot at each
we stay inside. We try to keep the
The keeping of regular timetables
5 p.m., everybody should be insi
curfews, emerges as a particularly i
in dealing with a hostile environme
sense of control in what is a fundam
the midst of a maelstrom of violen
between what is a "safe" and "unsa
long as residents return home by th
widespread and unpredictable to ris
("seguros").
Sheltering is often coupled with extra supervision of children, with parents
(and mainly mothers) keeping close tabs on where and with whom their sons

5 On the state intervention in the area and its role in the perpetuation of interpersonal violence, see Auyero and
Berti 2015.

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 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414 401

and daughters spend their time

kids by talking to them, by ch
letting them out after certain h
to check on their companies, all
Fearing for their own safety in p
always looking around to see if som
explains one resident - adult neigh
outside their homes. For example,
alone, especially at night. "I don't
gets dark," explains Zulma, age 41
bus stop," says another resident. Li
under the belief that there is safe
"dangerous.... it got ugly in the la
school, one student (age 16) explains
always. You need a big group to go
a badass, so that . . . you know . . .
group, or worse, by yourself ... th
stuff, your sneakers." Thus, althou
see that it generates certain rou
connectivity within the household
and who leaves, and who goes with
acquaintances (as when youths or
similar argument on the conne
neighborhoods].
The protective weapons of tho
adapt James Scott (1985), are simi
it the theft of sneakers or sexu
(age 38) about her children, "clo
to them. I don't want them to b
these days there are many dari
young girls. I try to get them
Similarly, Maria (age 41), states:
[Maria's children] have to call m
That residents are largely resp
points to the larger structural c
neighborhoods of relegation (W
typically negligent in regards t
complicit in this violence. Resid
cious of the police, many of wh
gang activity (see Auyero and A
poor neighborhoods in Latin America, see Goldstein 2012; Müller 2012;
Rodgers 2006; Zubillaga et al. 2015). Zulma (age 42) explains: "The cops
are always late, to collect the body if someone was killed, or to stitch you
up if you've been raped." In this context, what Kirk and Papachristos (2011)
call "legal cynicism" - the shared belief that law enforcement agents are "ille-
gitimate, unresponsive, and ill equipped to ensure public safety" (1191) - is
quite generalized.

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 402 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414

Despite
their deep-seated distrust
corrupt and
brutal6), residents do
a last-ditch attempt to save sons an
Driven by impotence and fear - im
substances (such as freebase cocaine
either murdered by a drug dealer
occasion, summon the punitive
provides this explanation for why
do anything against drugs. ... I die
time I think that he can die becaus
force has the same "sociological am
inmates' relatives (Comfort 2008).
As we have shown, residents - des
numerous efforts to stem violence
acts are embodied in the form of rou
as "a regular course of procedure; a
of certain acts or duties." These pr
meaning or not, expose an ethics o
and Peluso (2012), "an ethics of the
without any concerted thought put
toast ties people
of together in acts
As a conscientious reader may ha
recorded or to report in regard to
artifact of our research design, but
field site. For one, the structure of
to be available to meet the needs o
and women residents typically wor
and "dirty" labor, women residents
goods for La Salada, as vendors at th
other hand, many of the men in
neighborhood or participate in oth
construction), work that typically
tances, away from home. As is tr
struggle to balance wage earning
poor and marginalized commun
safety and wellbeing, families
children, and work is highly in
(see Heymann 2006). These prob
families, a family structure tha
(see, for example, Neumann
Ingeniero Budge.

6 Police brutality is part of the standard op

when poor youth from shantytowns and
Ingeniero Budge, this 'Violent and arbitrary p
infamous "massacre" in 1 987 in which three y
police, and five cases of lethal police violen
police in the area, see Auyero and Berti 201

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 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414 403

The structure of the local labor ma

travel far away to find work, is, o
Americas, perceiving and caring fo
populations, such as children, th
"women's work" (Bryson et al. 200
make choices about their paid labor
as to balance, their dual roles as
Ingeniero Budge, where physical in
loved ones out of harm's way not
tasks for the mainly - and already o
In Ingeniero Budge, as elsewhere,
blamed if children are injured or k
According to other residents in the
use, drug dealing, or other criminal
assessment of their own self-worth i
judgments regarding their ability
found that mothers feel intense p
geographically-specific understandi
1996; Edin and Kefalas 2005). Thus,
to engage in acts to protect their ch
forms, such as a small group of w
Paco - a grassroots organization tha
trade and its impact on young adul
action against drug dealers and the
Budge is embodied in the "smal
attention to above.
We are not the first to recognize that protecting children from danger is typically
placed on women's, and usually, mothers' shoulders. US-based black feminists have,
for decades now, drawn attention to the extra burden placed on black mothers to raise
their children in a context of racial discrimination and violence (Collins 2000; Jones
2009). Sinikka Elliott and Elyshia Aseltine (2013) have even given a name to the added
burden on women to protect their children from perceived, if not always realistic,
assessments of danger: "protective carework." Our work adds to this literature by
considering how these protective carework practices embed themselves in the daily
lives of people living among the precarity, widespread violence, and constant threats of
muggings, sexual assault, burglaries, and even death that this presents.

"Splitting apples": violence as a form of "protective care-work"

The protective and coping practices and routines described above find parallels in poor
and violent communities throughout the Americas (Goldstein 1998, 2003; Hautzinger
2007; Menjivar 201 1). More enigmatic, and much less explored in the literature, is the
teaching and use of physical force in the name of the prevention of (and protection
from) violence. In Ingeniero Budge, adults teach children how to use violence to
protect themselves; forcibly (and sometimes brutally) confine children perceived as
"getting in trouble"; and beat (actual or potential) perpetrators of violence (including

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 404 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393^14

their own children) and those who a

examine these practices, and consi
from the perspectives of the adult
One main way that parents and ot
through teaching them how to ut
Arguably, children across the class s
consider the many upper- and mid
that teach them how to use their b
heading of "sport" (Messner 1992).
the intention behind teaching v
imminent sexual assault) as well as
varies drastically across contexts.

Sonia tells us that she has mastere

and later adds, "they trained me
"My grandpa trained me... my old
amthe youngest of my sisters.

"'Sonia,' my grandpa said to me,

you, and when that happens, it's
my grandpa told me. And he train
me.... If my brother some day ca
punch him, choke him, nothing, b
taught me that the only way to de
in the bone that you guys have in
as hard as I can until I tear it out

Sonia took an apple from the kitc

the rest on the top of the fruit.
says, "and my grandpa made me
fingernails into it. Once I dug in m
to separate it into two halves. Wh
until I could break the apple."
split it into two.

Sonia's entire life has been shaped

my old man wanted to smash my
My sister took me in her arms, cr
mom." She also remembers brutal
fought, in my house, it was to
utilize violence in an effort to
threats to her well-being and a
safety. In this way, and along the
violence can be thought of as emb
as a form of "protective carewo
Ironically, the efforts of parents
found, end up contributing to the c

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 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414 405

"girl fighters" in Nikki Jones's (2

this"learned" violence occasionally
of others.
More difficult to understand than why parents and other adults sometimes
teach children and young adults how to use violence, in the interest of fostering
the latter's ability to protect themselves, is the frequent use of physical force
utilized against sons and daughters in the name of keeping children safe.
Physical aggression is used by parents to discipline sons and daughters and
to prevent potential violence and by neighbors to "educate" youngsters who are
deemed problematic. Fists, kicks, sticks, and chains are deployed to make both
young men and women stay away from " malas compañías " (friends deemed
bad influences) or, if they "already fell," to try to control their addiction to
drugs or alcohol and the violent behavior that ensues. Refrains such as: "Next
time I see you with a joint, I'll break your fingers"; "He came home so
drugged up, I punched him in the face until blood came out of my fingers";
and "I chained her to the bed so that she couldn't go out and smoke" were
disturbingly common throughout our fieldwork.
While particular in their details, the following vignettes are illustrative of the
context-dependent deployment of violence by adults (and mainly mothers) against their
sons and daughters.

Daniel (age 20) "has been smoking pot since he was 14," his mother Fernanda
(age 42) tells us, "but it was OK, nothing terrible happened to him, until paco
appeared.... I've seen him drugged with it, and it's terrible." Last Christmas,
Fernanda lost track of him for more days than usual (he tends to disappear from
home, for a couple days, only to come back, his clothes in rags, dirty, and
exhausted from long days and nights of smoking paco). In desperation,
Fernanda went looking for him. "I searched for him everywhere.... I
ended up in an abandoned house, one of those houses the kids use to
store and consume drugs.... It was night, pitch black, and I recognized the
sound of his laughter. Two kids there wanted to stop me but I told them
to let me in or I'd call the cops. I started dialing 911 and they let me in. I
got a hold of Daniel and beat the shit out of him. He doesn't remember I
punched him, he doesn't remember where he was. He doesn't remember
anything." After that episode, Fernanda tried to monitor Daniel's move-
ments more closely - "my acquaintances send me text messages when they
see him, they tell me if he is consuming or not."

After a particularly difficult week with her son, Leonardo (age 16) who is
addicted to freebase cocaine, Ana (45) tells us: "I hit him with the broom.
I hit him everywhere, arms, legs.... I lost it.... I swear to you, I lost it, I
didn't want to stop beating him until I could see blood coming out." Her
voice trembling, her eyes filled with tears, she then adds: "Leonardo has
stolen many things from me. The first time I beat him was when he sold
a cellphone he stole from us.... I beat him really bad; I grabbed his
fingers, and told him that if he did that again, I was going to break his
fingers, one by one so that he couldn't steal again. He never took a

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 406 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414

cellphone again, but he stole s

from me and resells it for 20

Fernanda and Ana's stories both involve the recollection of their use of violence
against teenage or young adult sons who frequently used paco. In both cases, the latter
disappeared for days or weeks at a time, and when they returned home, disrupted the
household through their own threat or use of violence or engaging in theft of the
households' valuable and scarce resources. Although we cannot access exactly what
made Fernanda and Ana engage in these acts of violence against their sons in the
moment (and suspect that the driving motivations behind these acts are complex,
multiple, and likely change throughout the course of committing violence), neither
do we think that these acts can be understood as pure cruelty - that is, the intentional
imposition of physical pain with the intention of causing anguish or fear (Shklar 1985).
Hours of listening to mothers recount brutal acts against their children reveal not
only the mechanics of violence (the form of the punch, the marks left on the victim's
body), but also, and more importantly, the frustration and impotence that mothers
experience in the course of attempting to protect their children - especially when they
feel that these efforts are being actively thwarted by their children's or other loved ones'
own actions. This frustration is illustrated in Alicia's (age 55) recounting of her use of
violence against Ezequiel (age 17), a friend of her son Victor (age 27): "When Ezequiel
came back to the house," recalls Alicia, "he was about to smoke another pipe [of paco],
I struck him across his face. 'Son of a bitch,' I told him, 'Don't you see that you are
making your mother suffer? She is very worried about you. And don't you even think
about hurting her, because I'll strike you harder next time.'"
If we keep listening - as we did during the many difficult hours of ethnographic
interviewing - mixed in with this palpable, overwhelming frustration and felt-loss of
control, another possible motivation for these mothers' use of violence emerges. This
was the mothers' belief that violence was the only means remaining to prevent an even
less desirable outcome than the marks they sometimes put on their children's bodies or
the fear and trauma that they may have inspired in their children through their violent
acts. Their violence, as they saw it, was a last ditch effort to interrupt addiction, keep
their children away from bad influences who might endanger them in and out of prison,
or end the cycle of young death in the community. Violence is thus seen as an
expression of care - as a right way of looking after others.
Ana, for example, explains her use of violence in these terms:

Last night, he [Leonardo] came back home high, drugged up, aggressive. He still
obeys me and he has not tried to hit me yet, but the friend with whom he does
drugs, does not even respect his mother, he is out of control.... What if
[Leonardo] is the next one to die? I'm really anguished. When he comes back
drugged, I can't do anything else other than beat him, because he doesn't
understand me, because I've spoken to him and he never listens. And I don't
want to hit him anymore, for him, for me, for my daughters who see
everything....

For Ana, violence is constructed not as a practice she wants to engage in, but rather,
as the only option ("I can't do anything else other than beat him") for keeping her son,

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Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414 407

and, importantly, her other childr

mothers who beat their sons and dau
of care" - a strategy to be put into
It is possible that through the dis
express care, these mothers are tryi
sense of their engagement in what a
fear, and, especially, taking joy in
that women may be discouraged
themselves to experience : making
ways, being a "good mother," po
argument about the attraction(s) o
drastically different contexts, moth
response to structure, or to their ow
family" (Damaske 2010) - demonst
women's beneficence to children a
Importantly, the way that mothers
of the research process. Women u
interviews and informal conversati
their daily lives - as captured in f
spaces. In other words, at the very
also cultural acceptance, from conce
the moment it was inspired by oth
But we are inclined to believe the
aimed at protecting their loved on
reason to be concerned that if they
will be severely injured or killed. F
Leonardo's half-brother, Matías, w
body abandoned in front of the lo
Other examples of early, violent d
numerous expressions of individua
number of youth in the communi
attended funerals to murals com
Berti 2013]).
Our ethnographic work reveals tha
their sons' and daughters' level of d
their assessments of how few option
use or to escape a gang. As we discu
police for help, though they somet
program, such as when Alicia's son
a robbery.... those 3 years behin
understand that mothers in this co
from impending danger than turn
perpetrators of brutal violence in t
very specific and extreme circums
view of the perpetrator - as a "last r
the context in which mothers ai
understand and to explain how an

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 408 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393^14

that practice may stick in the large

Ingeniero Budge.
One final vignette from our field
mothers in Ingeniero Budge face,
even understandable) response to t

Rubén (age 17) had disappeared fo

We looked everywhere. One day w
(nearby) squatter settlement. He
drugs.I went with my husband t
him to the bathtub, he was all dirt
and I smashed it in his back - I swear I am not a bad mother. But I don't know
what else to do. The next day, we went to the drug rehab center (to try to intern
him), to see what we could do. And he told the therapist there that I had beaten
him. But he didn't tell her that we had to pay $450 to the dealers. He owed that
much to the dealers, and if he didn't pay, they would kill him.

While the mother, Gloria, may have acted out of anger and frustration, her actions
are also a response to feeling as though no other choices existed to protect her son.

Concluding remarks

In recent years, we have seen a surge in interpersonal violence across Latin America,
concentrated in the region's most impoverished and marginalized regions. While a host
of studies have explored the devastating impact of this violence on the men, women,
and children relegated to the urban margins, far fewer studies have explored what
people do to protect themselves and to care for one another, despite, and in response to,
the challenges they face.
In part, this is probably because the people whose lives are inundated by violence
tend to express futility in its face (Bandura 1982). In conversation with researchers and
with each other, they emphasize the paralyzing and isolating effects of violence
(Caldeira 2001; Rotker 2002), telling us "there's nothing you can do" in response to
the robbings, murders, and rapes in their community. Our 30 months of ethnographic
data, however, reveal that despite what they say, residents engage a wide variety of
strategies to stem violence in their communities and homes and to protect those they
love. These practices have largely become routinized, a matter of course, in their daily
lives. Recognizing that these practices are also gendered - it is generally women who
set family curfews and organize groups to go to the bus stop, for example - we draw on
the notion of "protective carework" (Elliott and Aseltine 2013) to describe these under-
acknowledged efforts to cope with the uncertainty that chronic danger produces.
Having drawn on Michael Lambek (2010) and Veena Das 's (2012) concept of
"everyday ethics" (or the notion that it is the actions that people carry out on a day-
to-day basis that are reflective of an ethical stance) to make visible the expression of
care amidst violence through "small" and often routine acts such as "making toast," we
extend our gaze to other, frequent, if less routinized, acts that take place on-the-ground
in our field site. The same residents that organize trips to the bus stop or implement

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Theor Soc (2015) 44:393-414 409

family curfews (and even those th

and police violence as members of
teach their sons and daughters how t
sons and daughters to prevent them
name of protecting them from fu
these acts of "splitting apples" exi
"making toast" - though violence, m
There is, we understand, risk in
indeed honifically brutal, in term
well as society at-large, of negat
violence or of viewing (certain) w
there is significant evidence to th
warns of the tendency for research
crime in one of two ways: they ar
discipline focused on studying the
offending need not be considered"
field (US-based criminology) that Br
how their own gender biases may p
here. As Britton warns, there is
incompatible with womanhood and
these extreme acts of brutality in-
mothers' own insistence that embodi
we noted in other practices. Wary
holding ourselves and each other a
interviews and hundreds of pages o
aware that the women in our study
benefit of the doubt in assessments
Lacking strong and trustworthy i
often, fiscal and other forms of supp
in IngenieroBudge struggle largel
involvement crime or gangs, pri in
broader challenges and difficulties
strategic use of violence (typically
drugs or in an attempt to get their
rationalized by the perpetrators as
Listening to the data also force us
in a less than desirable light. Desp
children from further harm, mot
Fernanda - rarely accomplish their
violence. Alicia's son recovered f
When we last spoke to them, Fe
addiction. Rather, these mothers' a
that encircles poor people's lives, w
"learned violence" to youth in the
Wilding 2010).
Our work points to the importanc
and why the use of violence migh

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 410 Theor Soc (2015) 44:393^114

advocates of the use of violence agai

applying easy labels to those who u
further in the quest to end "the c
findings may be uncomfortable the
about the efforts needed to end vio

Coda

Reflecting on the role of writers as cultural producers, David Morris (1997) states that
they "can expand the borders of the moral community and force us to acknowledge
suffering where we normally do not see it." Along these lines, we see our work as an
attempt both to make the suffering of the marginalized visible (Das 1997) and to
unearth the many things that people, individually or collectively, do to cope with the
violence that affects them. This effort takes the form of scholarly articles written for
Anglophone audiences (such as this) and of other cultural products such as a short book
in Spanish written in accessible, jargon-free language (Auyero and Berti 2013) and op-
ed pieces written for mainstream Argentine newspapers. This combined endeavor
hopes to challenge misperceptions of the marginalized as too paralyzed by fear to
respond to interpersonal violence. Contesting misrepresentations with widespread
currency among officials and pundits is, we believe, a form of public intervention in
line with what Pierre Bourdieu (2010) dubbed "scholarship with commitment." We are
certainly not alone in this effort at challenging misconceptions and silences about the
horrific conditions in which the urban poor dwell - human rights organizations such as
Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales and feminist collectives such as La Casa del
Encuentro have been active in the denunciation of different forms of violence and in the
examination of the political and economic causes of violence.

Acknowledgments Special thanks to Raewyn Connell, Senior Editor of Theory and Society, and three
Theory and Society reviewers for their extremely helpful comments. An earlier version of this article was
presented at the Urban Ethnography Lab at the University of Texas-Austin. Thanks to the participants for their
insightful suggestions. The National Science Foundation (Award SES- 1 153230), the Harry Frank
Guggenheim Foundation, and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at the University
of Texas at Austin provided funding for this project.

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Javier Auyero is the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Professor in Latin American Sociology at the University
of Texas- Austin where he directs the Urban Ethnography Lab. He is the author of several books, including
Poor Peoples Politics (2000) and Patients of the State (2012). Together with Kristine Kilanski and other
fellows from the Urban Ethnography Lab, Auyerohas been examining modern forms of social suffering in
Austin, Texas. The results are published in Invisible in Austin. Life and Labor in an American City (2015).

Kristine Kilanski is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and a Graduate Fellow of the Urban
Ethnography Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. Kristine 's primary research interests are gender, work,
and poverty. Her research has appeared in Work & Occupations and Gender & Society.

Springer

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