BEXP 16A00 - The Latin American City: Urban Challenges and Transformations in Ethnographic Perspective

COURSE DESCRIPTION:



Urbanization is reshaping the world: according to the UN, over half of the global population currently resides in cities, with this figure expected to rise to approximately 68% by 2050. This is particularly rapid in Latin America, where urban populations have surged from 40% in 1950 to around 80% today. Latin American cities are sites of stark contrasts and complexities, where social inequality, informality, urban violence and (in)security, and vibrant forms of grassroots organization and resistance coexist and interact. The course critically engages with key challenges shaping contemporary Latin American cities, seeking to critically analyze key concepts and phenomena beyond normative binares. These include the dynamics of informal urban economies and housing, the multifaceted realities of urban insecurity, formal and informal governance, and the contested nature of urban transformation driven by innovation, gentrification, and tourism. The course examines these dimensions through an interdisciplinary lens grounded primarily in anthropology and ethnographic research. While acknowledging the role of elites and gated communities, the core focus of this course is on the lived experiences of the region's marginalized urban residents. The course also includes reflections on positionality, decolonial approaches, and the ethical and safety considerations inherent to ethnographic fieldwork in complex urban settings. .



COURSE SESSIONS:



Introduction

Lecture 1 – What Does It Mean to Do Urban Ethnography in Latin America?

This opening session introduces the core concerns of urban ethnography. We will explore what distinguishes the study of cities through ethnography and why this approach is particularly relevant to the Latin American context. What kinds of knowledge can urban ethnography produce? What is particular about doing ethnography in Latin American cities? Required Readings: • Fisher, B., McCann, B., & Auyero, J. (2014). Cities from Scratch: Poverty and Informality in Urban Latin America. Duke University Press. (Introduction) Recommended Readings: • Duneier, M., Kasinitz, P., & Murphy, A. (2014). The Urban Ethnography Reader. Oxford University Press. (Introduction) • Rodgers, D., Beall, J., & Kanbur, R. (2012). “Re-thinking the Latin American City.” In D. Rodgers, J. Beall, & R. Kanbur (Eds.), Latin American Urban Development into the Twenty-First Century: Towards a Renewed Perspective on the City (pp. 3–36). Palgrave Macmillan.

Theme I: Informal cities

The first thematic stream (Lectures 2-4) focuses on informality. We explore the debates surrounding slums, informal housing, precarious labor, and environmental vulnerabilities. Rather than framing informality as a fixed category, we problematize sharp divides between the formal and the informal. We ask: To what extent do these categories overlap or coexist? How do residents navigate, resist, and reshape these labels in their daily lives?

Lecture 2 – Informal Housing, Environmental Precarity, and Urban Extractivism

This session explores the material and political landscapes of informal housing in Latin America, with a focus on how urban expansion intersects with environmental vulnerability and territorial exploitation. We examine how self-built settlements emerge and endure at the margins of legality, infrastructure, and state recognition. How do residents construct homes in unstable terrains—literal and institutional—and how are these homes embedded in broader political economies of land, infrastructure, and ecological degradation? Required Readings: • Caldeira, T. (2017). “Peripheral Urbanization: Autoconstruction, Transversal Logics, and Politics in Cities of the Global South.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 35(1), 3–16. Recommended Readings: • Auyero, J., & Swistun, D. A. (2009). Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown. Oxford University Press. (Introduction) • García-Jerez, F.. (2019). “El extractivismo urbano y su giro ecoterritorial. Una mirada desde América Latina.” Bitácora Urbano Territorial, 29(2), 21–28.

Lecture 3 – Informal Labor, Precarity, and Making Ends Meet

In this session, we delve into the everyday worlds of informal labor in Latin American cities. Far from being marginal or temporary, informal economies form the backbone of urban life for millions. Through ethnographic accounts of waste-pickers, street vendors, and squatters, we explore the texture of precarity—not only as a condition of unstable employment but also as an existential experience of uncertainty, disruption, and resilience. What does it mean to live in the absence of formal wage labor? How do people navigate interrupted life trajectories, forge social solidarities, and construct meaning amid economic volatility? Required Readings: • Millar, K. M. (2018). Reclaiming the Discarded: Life and Labor on Rio's Garbage Dump. Duke University Press. (Introduction) Recommended Readings: • Goldstein, D. M. (2016). Owners of the Sidewalk: Security and Survival in the Informal City. Duke University Press. (Introduction) • Auyero, J., & Servián, S. (2025). Squatter Life: Persistence at the Urban Margins of Buenos Aires. Duke University Press. (Introduction)

Lecture 4 – Informal and Illegal(ized) Markets

This session investigates the blurred boundaries between informal and illegal economies in Latin American cities. We explore how markets—whether in counterfeit goods, stolen cars, or street-level retail—operate within dense moral, political, and spatial landscapes. Rather than viewing these economies as deviant or criminal, we approach them ethnographically, attending to the aspirations, solidarities, and forms of governance they produce. We ask: What are the everyday logics that guide participation in illegalized markets? How are these activities shaped by inequality, violence, and structural abandonment? Required Readings: • Feltran, G., ed. (2022). Stolen Cars: A Journey Through São Paulo's Urban Conflict. Wiley. (Introduction) Recommended Reading: • Dewey, M. (2016). Making It at Any Cost: Aspirations and Politics in a Counterfeit Clothing Marketplace. University of Texas Press. (Introduction) • Gago, V. (2014). La razón neoliberal: Economías barrocas y pragmática popular. Tinta Limón.

Theme II: Insecure cities

The second thematic stream (Lectures 5-7) turns to debates on security and insecurity, examining the multiple dimensions of urban violence, criminalized economies, and processes of securitization. WE challenge dialectic assumptions about security and insecurity, probing whose experiences are validated and whose fears are amplified.

Lecture 5 – Perceptions of Crime and (In)Security

This session explores how insecurity is not only a lived reality but also a powerful social and political construct. We look at how insecurity is racialized, spatialized, and gendered—how certain areas and bodies are marked as dangerous, and how these perceptions justify spatial segregation and punitive interventions. We also consider how residents internalize, resist, or navigate these geographies of fear. Finally, we consider how discourses and policies of security operate as tools of neoliberal urban governance, often reinforcing inequality under the guise of protection. Required Readings: • Caldeira, T. (2000). City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo. University of California Press. (Introduction) Recommended Readings: • Penglase, B. (2014). Living with Insecurity in a Brazilian Favela: Urban Violence and Daily Life. Rutgers University Press. (Introduction) • Saunders-Hastings, K. (2019). “Red Zone Blues: Violence and Nostalgia in Guatemala City.” Ethnography, 20(3), 359–378.

Lecture 6 – Urban Violence(s)

This lecture problematizes the notion of urban violence in Latin America, moving beyond a focus on spectacular events to include the structural, intimate, and normalized forms of harm that shape everyday life. We explore how violence in urban spaces operates at multiple scales—whether within households, between gangs, or through police interventions. We ask: Is there such a thing as a distinct form of urban violence? And how are different forms of violence in urban spaces interconnected? Required Readings: • Rodgers, D. (2009). “Slum Wars of the 21st Century: Gangs, Mano Dura and the New Urban Geography of Conflict in Central America.” Development and Change, 40(5), 949–976. Recommended Readings: • Auyero, J., & Berti, M. F. (2015). In Harm's Way: The Dynamics of Urban Violence. Princeton University Press. (Introduction) • Larkins, E. M. (2015). The Spectacular Favela: Violence in Modern Brazil. University of California Press. (Introduction) • Hume, M. (2009). The Politics of Violence: Gender, Conflict and Community in El Salvador. Wiley. (Introduction)

Lecture 7 – Vigilantism and Criminal Governance: The Ambivalent State and Urban Order

This lecture explores the complex relationships between formal state authorities, criminal organizations, and the notions of order and disorder in Latin American cities. We focus on how police, vigilantes, and criminal networks negotiate power and regulate life and death within urban territories, often creating interconnected systems of governance that blur the lines between legality and illegality. We discuss the ambivalent role of the state as both protector and perpetrator, examining how communities experience justice, security, and violence by and beyond official institutions. Required Readings: • Willis, G. D. (2015). The Killing Consensus: Police, Organized Crime, and the Regulation of Life and Death in Urban Brazil. University of California Press. (Introduction) Recommended Readings: • Arias, E. D. (2006). “The Dynamics of Criminal Governance: Networks and Social Order in Rio de Janeiro.” Journal of Latin American Studies, 38(2), 293–325. • Auyero, J., & Sobering, K. (2019). The Ambivalent State: Police-Criminal Collusion at the Urban Margins. Oxford University Press. (Introduction) • Goldstein, D. M. (2012). Outlawed: Between Security and Rights in a Bolivian City. Duke University Press. (Introduction)

Theme III: Transforming cities

The third thematic stream (Lectures 8-10) explores the “transforming city.” Here, we investigate processes of urban innovation and renewal, as well as their unintended consequences. From gentrification and mass tourism to cooptation of grassroots movements, this section highlights how urban transformation is uneven and often contested. We question the assumption that all innovation is inherently positive, paying close attention to who benefits and who is displaced or marginalized by so-called progress. This section encourages students to critically reflect on the politics of urban renewal and the competing visions of a city's future.

Lecture 8 – Activist and Intimate Resistance: Gender, Race, and Class in Urban Struggles

This session explores how residents of Latin American cities resist violence and exclusion through both collective activism and everyday intimate practices. We focus on the intersections of gender, race, and class, analyzing how marginalized groups claim rights, visibility, and dignity in deeply unequal urban contexts. We examine multiple forms of resistance, from social movements to grassroots organizing, cultural expressions, and subtle everyday acts of defiance. Required Readings: • Goldstein, D. M. (2003). Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown. University of California Press. (Introduction) Recommended Readings: • Naranjo, G., & Hurtado, D. (2002). El derecho a la ciudad: Migrantes y desplazados en las ciudades Colombianas. Corporación Región.

Lecture 9 – Polarizing Cities: Abandonment, Transformation, and Gentrification

This lecture examines how urban landscapes in Latin America are marked by stark polarization, where processes of abandonment coexist with innovation and transformation efforts. Focusing on the tensions between the state, private interests, environmental concerns, and local communities, we consider how urban ‘rehabilitation' and ‘hygienisation' projects often lead to dispossession and contested claims over city spaces. Required Readings: • Garmany, J., & Richmond, M. A. (2019). “Hygienisation, Gentrification, and Urban Displacement in Brazil.” Antipode, 52(1), 124–144. Recommended Readings: • Naef, P. (2023). “The Criminal Governance of Tourism: Extortion and Intimacy in Medellín.” Journal of Latin American Studies, 55(2), 323–348. • Biehl, V. (2005). Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment. University of California Press. (Introduction)

Lecture 10 – Case Study: The ‘Medellín Miracle'?

In this lecture, we delve deep into a single case study: the emblematic case of Medellín, Colombia's second-largest city, which became infamous in the 1980s and 1990s as ‘the most violent city in the world', and later underwent considerable transformation, becoming an attractive pole for tourists, digital nomads, and investors. This lecture critically examines the complex set of strategies behind this transformation, showing how, while urban regeneration projects are widely credited for reducing lethal violence, they also coexist with militarized approaches, increased security budgets, negotiated alliances with criminal actors, and new forms of extractive violence. We explore these contradictions as an example of the critical analysis students will be required to develop in their final essays. Required Readings: • Abello-Colak, Alexandra, and Valeria Guarneros-Meza. “The Role of Criminal Actors in Local Governance.” Urban Studies 51, no. 15 (2014): 3268–89. Recommended Readings: • Blair Trujillo, E., Grisales, M., & Muñoz, A. M. (2009). ‘Conflictividades urbanas vs. “guerra” urbana: Otra “clave” para leer el conflicto en Medellín.' Universitas Humanística, 67, 29–54. • Abello-Colak, A., & Butti, E. (forthcoming). ‘Social Urbanism, City Branding and Criminal Mutations in Medellín.' In K. Mitton, A. Varsori & Z. Waseem (Eds.), Oxford Handbook on Urban Violence. Oxford University Press.

Theme IV: Positionality, Safety and Ethics

Lecture 11 – Researching the Latin American City: Researcher's Positionality

This session invites students to reflect on the ethical, methodological, and political challenges involved in researching Latin American cities, particularly in contexts marked by violence, inequality, and marginalization. We will discuss how the positionality of the researcher – including gender, race, class, and nationality – shapes fieldwork relationships, knowledge production and interpretations. Rather than assigning mandatory readings, students will be invited to choose two texts from the list below that resonate with their own research questions or personal experiences. Selected students will be invited to share a brief personal reflection in class.

Suggested Readings:

• Kovats-Bernat, J. C. (2002). “Negotiating Dangerous Fields: Pragmatic Strategies for Fieldwork Amid Violence and Terror.” American Anthropologist, 104(1), 208–222. • Wade, P. (2005). “Rethinking Mestizaje: Ideology and Lived Experience.” Journal of Latin American Studies, 37(2), 239–257. • Irwin, K. (2006). “Into the Dark Heart of Ethnography: The Lived Ethics and Inequality of Intimate Field Relationships.” Qualitative Sociology, 29(2), 155–175. • Rodgers, D. (2007). “Joining the Gang and Becoming a Broder: The Violence of Ethnography in Contemporary Nicaragua.” Bulletin of Latin American Research, 26(4), 444–461. • Jones, G. A., & Rodgers, D. (2007). “Introduction: Researching Youth and Violence in Central America – Participatory Methodologies.” Bulletin of Latin American Research, 26(4), 439–443. • Baird, A. (2009). “Methodological Dilemmas: Researching Violent Young Men in Medellín, Colombia.” IDS Bulletin, 40(3), 72–77. • Theidon, K. (2014). “‘How Was Your Trip?' Self-Care for Researchers Working and Writing on Violence.” Social Science Research Council Working Papers, 2. • Hanson, R., & Richards, P. (2017). “Sexual Harassment and the Construction of Ethnographic Knowledge.” Sociological Forum, 32(3), 587–609. • Caretta, M. A., & Jokinen, J. C. (2017). “Conflating Privilege and Vulnerability: A Reflexive Analysis of Emotions and Positionality in Postgraduate Fieldwork.” The Professional Geographer, 69(2), 275–283. • Méndez, M. J., & Van Damme, E. (2024). “Studying Gangs in Central and South America: Reflections on Gender and Researcher Positionality.” In D. C. Pyrooz, J. A. Densley & J. Leverso (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Gangs and Society, 329–351. Oxford University Press. • Vanderstaay, S. L. (2005). “One Hundred Dollars and a Dead Man: Ethical Decision Making in Ethnographic Fieldwork.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 34(4), 371–409.

Lecture 12 – Researching the Latin American City: Safety, Ethics, and Concluding Remarks

This final session will reflect on the ethical, emotional, and safety challenges of researching in contexts of urban inequality and violence. How do researchers navigate power differentials, risk, and responsibility in the field? What strategies can be adopted to make fieldwork safer, more ethical, and more inclusive? We will also revisit key theoretical and methodological insights from the course and introduce guidelines for the final essay.

Required Readings: • Butti, E. (2024). “Safe and Ethical Ethnography: Looking Inwards.” In C. Procter & B. Spector (Eds.), Inclusive Ethnography: Making Fieldwork Safer, Healthier and More Ethical, 18–32. SAGE. Recommended Readings: • Jones, G. A., & Rodgers, D. (2019). “Ethnographies and/of Violence.” Ethnography, 20(3), 297–319. • Wolseth, J. (2019). “Writing after Betrayal: Desahogarse, Street Outreach, and Ethnography.” Ethnography, 20(3), 342–358.

Elena BUTTI

Cours magistral seul

English

Students are required to read the mandatory reading and participate actively in class.

None

Spring 2025-2026

Class Participation and Attendance – 20% Active engagement in discussions is expected throughout the course. This includes regular attendance, informed contributions, and respectful collaboration with peers. Photo or Film Presentation – 15% Throughout the course, students will work in small groups to identify a photograph or short film clip that illustrates an aspect of urban life discussed in class. They will be requested to make a brief presentation on the selected audiovisual piece and the reflections that it generated in them, connecting it to key authors and concepts discussed in the class. Ethnographic assignment – 25 % Mid-way through the course, students will be requested to carry out an ethnographic exercise in a city of their choice, and write a 1,500 words field note of their observation and conversation. An example will be provided. Final Essay (4,000 words) – 40% Students will submit a critical analysis of a key urban challenge in a Latin American city of their choice. The essay should engage with course concepts and demonstrate critical thinking.

Weekly 2-hour sessions consisting of a lecture-style introduction followed by a seminar-style discussion based on assigned readings and thematic topics.