Urban Insecurity as a Language of Political Contention in Madrid (Spain)

Authors

  • Montserrat Cañedo Rodríguez

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v2i6.129

Keywords:

Urban, Insecurity in Spain, Fear and Public, Policy, Aging and City

Abstract

Public policies for urban planning developed since the 1980s in Spanish city centres have been marked by the idea of “refurbishing” areas that are “in crisis.” The discourse of citizens’ insecurity has become the framework of shared meaning for diagnosing problems, as well as for legitimizing policies. Using an ethnographic analysis carried out in a central Madrid neighbourhood, I will analyze how the experience of insecurity of one sector of the residents, which is shaped in the framework of the general discourse of citizen insecurity, is, however, rooted in a specific life trajectory that indicates socio-cultural and economic keys that have little to do with the causes of insecurity that the hegemonic discourse continually indicates. More generally, I hope to show, with this case study, how anthropological analyses can contribute to the evaluation of public urban policies.

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