Vivir en calma: Crimen organizado y vida cotidiana en Durango, México

Abstract

These research notes are the result of an accidental and involuntary ethnographic process carried out throughout 2023 in the state of Durango, in northern Mexico. They are a preliminary analysis of the information collected on the evident presence of organized crime and its effects on the daily lives of citizens. Most studies on violence in Mexico-and Latin America-tend to deal with situations of extreme violence or focus on the poor and marginalized population, who suffer different types of oppression. These notes portray a different situation in two ways. First, they emerge from fieldwork conducted in an environment of apparent tranquility: Durango is currently among the most peaceful states in the country, if "peace"is measured by number of homicides. Only a hundred people are murdered annually, an anomaly in a bloody country that reports more than thirty thousand violent deaths each year. Second, the notes emerge mainly from the testimony of the middle and upper classes, segments of the population that suffer the consequences of violence but have been largely ignored by the literature. The research shows that organized crime significantly conditions the daily lives of citizens, who live in "peace"but in fear. Criminal groups disrupt citizens' work and leisure, as well as their relationship with the government. This study also reflects on how organized crime impacts the normal functioning of the state and liberal democracy.