Miriam Bautista Arias D. in Social Sciences in the area of Communication and Politics from the University of California, Berkeley. uam-Xochimilco, where she also studied a master's degree in Communication and Politics; she has a degree in Communication Sciences from the Salesian University. Her research interests are in the field of violence and citizenship with particular emphasis on the emergence of subjectivities and tactics of resistance. She has been a professor in the area of undergraduate and graduate communication at different public and private universities and a research assistant in the graduate program in Communication and Politics at the University of Buenos Aires. uam-Xochimilco. She has also worked as associate co-editor of the news agency of the Reforma newspaper and as a free-lance reporter for specialized magazines. She is the author of the book El murmullo social de la violencia en México. La experiencia de los sujetos afectados por la guerra contra el narcotráfico (The social murmur of violence in Mexico. uam-Xochimilco in co-publication with the cesop of the Chamber of Deputies in January 2017.

Temáticas

Girls No Longer Want to Have Fun: Gender Violence and Self-Care in the Mexico City Suburbs

  • Miriam Bautista Arias

Keywords: insecurity, recreation, tactics, trafficking, daily life.

Municipalities such as Tultitlán, Coacalco and Ecatepec in the State of Mexico have been part of a human trafficking corridor for several years now, where the disappearance of women has become a constant; in this scenario, inhabitants of these localities narrate their experiences of insecurity and fear, their practices of self-care and show how danger shapes daily activities. The stories of these young women make visible the way in which violence shapes female subjectivities in contexts where dangers are inevitable and life cannot be interrupted because of them; the only alternative is to adapt. In the experience of these women, fear is not a distant and random possibility, but a latent and close risk, which they are able to fight every day, but who knows until when: they all relate situations of danger that by some chance did not come to fruition. Particularly, recreation is inscribed in a discourse on the impossibility of being safe anywhere, of prohibition and victim-blaming; nightlife, sporadic and limited, is characterized as "destrampe" or "immature and irresponsible behavior".