The State and its margins

An ethnographic approach to the Marconi neighborhood

Abstract

This article sheds light through some evidence and ideas from an investigation that focused on the interactions, relationships, emotions and perceptions  etween the inhabitants of the
Marconi neighborhood of Montevideo and the security forces stationed in that territory. Based on the ethnographic approach, a deep understanding of these  ocial keys was sought from the perspective of the people of the neighborhood. In this article we intend to understand how the action of law enforcement is deployed in places that already concentrate significant levels of violence, analyzing how this action affects the subjectivity of people and the reproduction of such violence. Although the irruption of drug trafficking in the area has had profound destabilizing effects, drug violence is not the only one present, and at the same time it is tied to other highly complex dynamics that the ethnographic method helps to unravel.