One of us committed a crime: trajectories in the construction of homicide victims in young people

Abstract

This article aims to identify trajectories that contribute to the fact that young people from popular sectors are victims of homicide. We will deal with deaths that occur between people who have links prior to the event and who are not motivated to commit a robbery or other crime. The text documents and analyzes the trajectory of a young victim of this type of homicide from a qualitative perspective. The field work took place between 2011 and 2017 in popular neighborhoods of the suburbs of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. We maintain that there is a collective process along the trajectory that exacerbates the youth’s vulnerability to lethal aggression. In its composition, we highlight key events that restrict the agency’s possibilities for victims and lead them to a zone of fragility to death in the context of local sociability.