A01=Anthony W. Fontes
Age Group_Uncategorized
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Author_Anthony W. Fontes
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brutal organizations
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JHB
Category=JHBT
Category=JHMC
Category=JKV
collective terror
contract killings
COP=United States
criminals
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
drug trade
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
extortion
gang dominated neighborhoods
gang violence
gangs
guatemala city
guatemalans
insecure life
Language_English
maras
migration
new era of violence
PA=Available
police precincts
postwar violence
Price_€20 to €50
prisons
PS=Active
social order
softlaunch
state terror
us deportation
violent crime
Product details
- ISBN 9780520297098
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 06 Nov 2018
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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The fear of violent crime dominates Guatemala City. In the midst of unprecedented levels of postwar violence, Guatemalans struggle to fathom the myriad forces that have made life in this city so deeply insecure. Born out of histories of state terror, migration, and US deportation, maras (transnational gangs) have become the face of this new era of violence. They are brutal organizations engaged in extortion, contract killings, and the drug trade, and yet they have also become essential to the emergence of a certain kind of social order.
Drawing on years of fieldwork inside prisons, police precincts, and gang-dominated neighborhoods, Anthony W. Fontes demonstrates how gang violence has become indissoluble from contemporary social imaginaries and how these gangs provide cover for a host of other criminal actors. Ethnographically rich and unflinchingly critical, Mortal Doubt illuminates the maras’ role in making and mooring collective terror in Guatemala City while tracing the ties that bind this violence to those residing in far safer environs.
Drawing on years of fieldwork inside prisons, police precincts, and gang-dominated neighborhoods, Anthony W. Fontes demonstrates how gang violence has become indissoluble from contemporary social imaginaries and how these gangs provide cover for a host of other criminal actors. Ethnographically rich and unflinchingly critical, Mortal Doubt illuminates the maras’ role in making and mooring collective terror in Guatemala City while tracing the ties that bind this violence to those residing in far safer environs.
Anthony W. Fontes is Assistant Professor in the School of International Service, American University.
