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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:41 am
Time: 11:41 am
Results for violent crime (managua, nicaragua)
1 results foundAuthor: Gordon, Rachel Title: Urban Resilience in Situations of Chronic Violence Case Study of Managua, Nicaragua Summary: This report explores the ways in which citizens of Managua cope with and adapt to dynamic security conditions in their daily lives as well as the interactions among institutions, actors and spaces that enable and constrain strategies of resilience. Despite the Nicaraguan government’s oft-touted assertion that it is the safest country in Central America, relatively little empirical research exists to shed light on residents’ quotidian experiences of insecurity or senses of agency regarding conditions of violence in their immediate surroundings. How are experiences and perceptions of insecurity shaped by the spatial and social configurations of urban life? How are they mediated by state institutions and non-state actors? What strategies enable resilience? Underlying this case study is the observation—herein regarded as sufficiently accurate—that Managua has thus far avoided the dire urban security challenges facing many of its neighbors, particularly those to the north: Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. It does, however, face the same mounting security difficulties as all of its neighbors in the region: a spiraling struggle against corruption, narco-trafficking and other organized crime, a dearth of economic opportunities, and the legacies of intra-state conflicts. While the legacy of civil war is an oft-cited factor underlying chronic violence, the correlation may be a spurious one. In fact, a central argument of this study is that the multi-layered legacy of the 1979 Sandinista revolution is not anathema to, but is the basis of, citizen resilience to current, entwined economic and security challenges. Such resilience is manifest in localized spatial and social loyalties that contribute to strong neighborhood identities, at the expense of a single broad urban identity. Resilience is defined here as residents’ ability to absorb, cope with, and adapt to the realities of insecurity and violence such that their lives are not consistently disrupted by it. The main focus of this study is on how social and spatial factors interact to determine resilience: how and why a strong neighborhood identity – itself a fusion of social and spatial characteristics – is central to citizens’ ability to cope and adapt in various ways. It is noted that all resilience strategies are not necessarily “positive.” The actions people take to enable the survival and security of themselves and their families in the face of an array of daily threats are what those individuals see as necessary; that does not make them necessarily positive in the long run. Instead, they must be understood to spring from inevitably imperfect sets of options under invariably constrained circumstances. In a hypothetical final accounting, they might prove to be at least as detrimental to security conditions as they are beneficial. Resilience, however, like history, has no such end point toward which human beings, communities and governments can plan. Instead, they must constantly confront multiple stressors and constraints utilizing various dynamic options and strategies. It is also noted that research inevitably offers only snapshot, a momentary freezing of the frame outside of which these various processes continue their constant cycles. While there exists a great volume of political and philosophical polemics on Nicaragua’s historical and modern development, relatively few scholars—in either Spanish or English—have reliably documented current chronic security challenges. The lack of reliable crime statistics and the confusing and inconsistent manner in which crimes are categorized place significant limitations on this and other analyses. In addition, the dearth of specific and non-politicized data and analysis regarding broad physical and livelihoods security factors—including infrastructure, social services, economic activity and opportunities, and vulnerability to hazards and shocks—makes Managua ripe but particularly challenging for analysis. It is explicitly assumed that ideology always shapes discourse, and that all analysis is inherently subjective. That said, the role of ideology in shaping discourse both within and related to Nicaragua is particularly outsized. This study attempts depoliticized analysis to the greatest extent possible, recognizing that such an extent may not be very great given the politicized nature of nearly all discourse in and related to Nicaragua today and throughout the past several decades. This study takes five parts. First, it locates Managua within its national and regional context, describing the physical and social development of the city itself and mapping key socio-historical events onto the geo-spatial layout of the city. Second, it describes current data and perceptions of violence, primary security actors, and the nature of state intervention. This section introduces the role of the National Police force, itself deeply rooted in the 1979 revolution, as a key mediator of security and resilience. Third, it explores spatial and social aspects of resilience, focusing on strong neighborhood identity—a legacy of geological and political upheaval—as a primary source of resilience. This section discusses the reaches and limitations of overt state intervention, as well as the implications of politicized organizing in diverse neighborhood contexts. Fourth, it examines enabling and constraining factors of resilience in greater depth, including poverty and inequality, narco-trafficking, the “youth bulge,” and the gendered dimensions of violence. This section posits a distinction between “public” and “private” spheres of violence by which some types of violence are deemed socially problematic while others—namely, “domestic” violence against women and children—are treated as ordinary and commonplace. Fifth and finally, it offers a brief analysis of the sustainability of resilience in the Managua context. Details: Cambridge, MA: Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012. 61p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 7, 2012 at: http://www.urcvproject.org/uploads/Managua_URCV.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Nicaragua URL: http://www.urcvproject.org/uploads/Managua_URCV.pdf Shelf Number: 127138 Keywords: Urban AreasUrban NeighborhoodsUrban ViolenceViolenceViolent Crime (Managua, Nicaragua) |