Violence at the Urban Margins seeks to shift the focus on discussions of public safety in urban society away from the middle and upper-middle classes to the urban margins where people experience violence the most.

Acknowledgements ; Introduction ; Kristine Kilanski and Javier Auyero ; Section 1: Shared Understandings ; Chapter One: The Moral Economy of Murder: Violence, Death, and Social Order in Nicaragua ; Dennis Rodgers ; Chapter Two: The Moral Economy of Violence in the US Inner City ; George Karandinos, Laurie Hart, Fernando Montero Castrillo, and Philippe Bourgois ; Chapter Three: On the Importance of Having a Positive Attitude ; Kevin Lewis O'Neill and Benjamin Fogarty-Valenzuela ; Section 2: Gender and Masculinities ; Chapter Four: 'Es que para ellos el deporte es matar': Rethinking the scripts of violent men in El Salvador and Brazil ; Mo Hume and Polly Wilding ; Chapter Five: Duros and Gangland Girlfriends: Male Identity, Gang Socialisation and Rape in Medellin ; Adam Baird ; Section 3: Being in danger, what do people do? ; Chapter Six: Fear and Spectacular Drug Violence in Monterrey ; Ana Villarreal ; Chapter Seven: Chismosas and Alcahuetas: Being the mother of an empistolado within the everyday armed violence of a Caracas barrio ; Veronica Zubillaga, Manuel Llorens, and John Souto ; Chapter Eight: Managing in the Midst of Social Disaster: Poor People's Responses to Urban Violence ; Javier Auyero and Kristine Kilanski ; Chapter Nine: When the Police Knock Your Door In ; Alice Goffman ; Section 4: Ethnographic positions and the politics of violence ; Chapter Ten: Standpoint Purgatorio: Liminal Fear and Danger in Studying the "Black and Brown" Tension in Los Angeles ; Randol Contreras ; Chapter Eleven: When the Rule of Law is Irrelevant: Death Squads and Vigilante Politics in Democratic North East Brazil ; Nancy Scheper-Hughes ; Postface ; Philippe Bourgois ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index

"Violence at the Urban Margins is an excellent collection of cutting-edge ethnography on the brutality of everyday life in impoverished areas across the Americas. Auyero, Bourgois, and Scheper-Hughes are among the greatest contemporary scholars of violence, and here they've assembled work from the most important new voices in the field. It's an excellent resource for students, faculty, and anyone else interested in understanding the lived experience of urban outcasts in an increasingly unequal world." --Eric Klinenberg, Professor of Sociology, New York University "This esteemed group of international scholars brings 'the margins' into the core of contemporary research. A compelling tour de force, Violence at the Urban Margins takes us into the homes, streets, institutions and personal lives of those wielding, suffering, and combatting violence to shed light on power/lessness across global expressions. Weaving together multidisciplinary perspectives, this book adds compelling depth and dimensionality to the literature working to understand violence and its alternatives in the world today." --Carolyn Nordstrom, Professor of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame "Violence at the Urban Margins is an important contribution to our understanding of the emerging dynamics of violence in cities across the Western Hemisphere. Overall, the empirical chapters are well-written and engaging ethnologies that offer us provocative and nuanced arguments. The book will and should be read widely by those interested in better understanding the complex and varied roles that violence plays in lives lived in the urban margins." --Eduardo Moncada, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Barnard College "Violence at the Urban Margins is divided into four parts, and each part engages themes that have not been dealt with in the current literature.This book is strongly recommended as a resource for professionals and advanced students of anthropology, sociology, and urban studies. It is an important contribution to the literature because it illuminates evidence that is absent from the existing research." -Leon Yacher, Southern Connecticut State University, International Social Science Review'

Selling point: An in-depth, interdisciplinary work including contributions from sociologists and anthropologists with a cross-regional focus on the Americas. Selling point: Illustrates theory in action, the creative use of theoretical and analytical tools to illuminate particular aspects of the sources, experiences, uses, and effects of violence. Selling point: Examines the dynamics of violence in marginalized neighborhoods in the U.S., Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, El Salvador, Venezuela, and Argentina.

Javier Auyero is Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Professor in Latin American Sociology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. Philippe Bourgois is the Richard Perry University Professor of Anthropology and Family & Community Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Nancy Scheper-Hughes is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Selling point: An in-depth, interdisciplinary work including contributions from sociologists and anthropologists with a cross-regional focus on the Americas. Selling point: Illustrates theory in action, the creative use of theoretical and analytical tools to illuminate particular aspects of the sources, experiences, uses, and effects of violence. Selling point: Examines the dynamics of violence in marginalized neighborhoods in the U.S., Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, El Salvador, Venezuela, and Argentina.