4 Everyone and Everything Against the Youth

1. Racialized Young Men: Scapegoats

This section of the course revolves around the violence exercised against young dark-skinned poor and racialized men in contemporary Mexico.

René Girard, in theorizing how the figure of the scapegoat is constructed, establishes something that can be applied to the thousands of young people murdered in Mexico as a result of the ongoing securitization policy since 2006: “The pursuers believe they choose their victim by virtue of the crimes they attribute to them, which in their eyes make them responsible for the disasters against which they react with persecution” (39).

Hence, in this project they are called “subjects instrumentalized as scapegoats” as is also the case today with the migrant subject passing through Mexico: he is the repository of discourses that both criminalize him, in order to deprive him of rights, and elevate and martyrize him, in order to exploit him through, for example, NGOs or public policies. Although the project does not focus on this latter subject, it mentions it in the four chapters to carry out contrasting exercises.

By pursuers, one can understand the representatives of the State and its governmental and financial subsidiaries, or much worse, the broad sectors of society that embrace the discourse emanating from the State, and thus become, perhaps unwittingly, harassers of the victims, of the young, pauperized subjects, criminalized and ultimately eliminated. “Scapegoat” is a highly productive concept for thinking about both the state’s own strategies that criminalize young people, and the role of cultural products subjected to the discursive hegemony disseminated by the State, which contribute to the reinforcement of that same idea.

2. Racialized Youth: The State’s Target

Those participating in this seminar will be able to review problematic arguments, such as that of Sayak Valencia, who in her well-known work Gore Capitalism (commented on in this article by Rose Deller) far from questioning the instrumentalization of young men as objects/subjects of the Mexican neoliberal necropolitical apparatus, presents it as a protagonist with absolute agency who embraces identities full of exacerbated violence.

But they will also have the opportunity to question the above through concepts such as ‘juvenilecide,’ with which José Manuel Valenzuela Arce studies the phenomenon of subjects instrumentalized as scapegoats, as well as the critical approaches of Rosana Reguillo (a review of whose work is found here) to the instrumentalized violence by the Mexican state against racialized youth. (This work by Natalia M. Ramírez López, which offers a regional view of the phenomenon, helps to understand the Mexican case.)

Here “objective violence” is conceptualized similarly in research such as Crime as Reality and Representation (2012) by Fernando Escalante Gonzalbo (reviewed here by José Ignacio Delgado), Drug Cartels Do Not Exist (available here for purchase) (2018) by Oswaldo Zavala (a conference by the author himself here), Neoliberal War (2020) by Dawn Paley and this other article by her, and Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico (2017) by Guadalupe Correa (here a conference by the author herself).

Together, they offer a broad view of how Mexico and the US have approached the binational security strategy with extractivist objectives, and have constructed this social sector as their main scapegoat.

3. The Impossibility of Resisting Nowadays.

It is practically impossible to find studies on the movements of struggle by criminalized dark-skinned young people by the State and official agencies as part of the discursive strategy of the “war on drugs.”

This is because such movements simply do not exist.

The reading of the following research works is carried out bearing in mind that poor young men with dark skin are the main victims of intentional homicides and also bearers of the stereotype that places them as possessors of violent masculinities, so that the violent characteristic of their personality would prevent them from organizing against the violence expressed against them, as such violence is socially seen as coming from the forms of socialization that they themselves practice.

The following research works can be grouped in two ways. On the one hand, the studies from whose perspective young people, particularly young men, assume identities aligned with the stereotypes that criminalize them. Within this group are “Gender, Violence and Criminalization of Gang Youth. Challenges to the Indigenous and Peasant Community of the Sierra Nevada Poblana” by Rufino Díaz-Cervantes and “In the Line of Fire: Construction of Masculinities in Young Tamaulipas Men Linked to Narcos” by Rocío Córdova Plaza and Ernesto Hernández Sánchez. Both anthropological texts assume the existence of “gangs,” “masculinities linked to narcos,” “violent masculinities,” among other notions that only reinforce prejudices against the youth who, as this project establishes, have rather been criminalized.

The second group understands the young person pauperized by neoliberalism as an object of criminalization by security policies such as the “war on drugs.” The youth, thus, are indeed sacrificial victims. In this group, there are texts such as “The #YoSoy132 Movement and the Struggle for Media Democratization in Mexico” by Rodrigo Gómez García and Emiliano Treré, “Latin American Identity of Young Activists in International Political Spaces” by Yin-zu Chen, “Mexican Youth: Structural Violence and Criminalization” by Maritza Urteaga Castro Pozo and Hugo César Moreno Hernández, and “Notes on the Criminalization of Social Movements in Latin America: Examples from Brazil and Mexico” by Simone da Silva Ribeiro Gomes, Roxana Cavalcanti and Carlos de Jesús Gómez Abarca.

Although they study different cases of self-organized young people around social movements, all of them, however, start from the assumption that the young subject is more interested in accessing the media to publicize ideas and proposals, than in denouncing the structural violence suffered by the State agents. Alexandra Délano Alonso and Benjamin Nienass’s own research analyzing the successful youth resistance space New’s Divine shows that the project has been led by the Mexico City government and by social collectives not necessarily youthful.

4. Vicious Cycle: Cultural Products that Criminalize.

Those attending this seminar will also analyze perspectives through which cultural objects have been analyzed that are exemplary for their negativity in validating the hegemonic idea constructed by the State itself according to which young poor men in Mexico are, in a word, victims of violence caused by themselves.

Regarding films, there are texts like this one by Jeremy Key on the film “Nuevo Orden,” by Michel Franco. There are also comments by the well-known Mexican film critic Columba Vértiz on Chicuarotes (2017) by Gael García. Regarding Everardo Márquez’s documentary La Libertad del Diablo, there are comments ranging from the supposed denunciation of the war on drugs to articles about its aesthetic elements.

Regarding novels, such as Hurricane Season (2017) and Páradais (2021) by Fernanda Melchor, most of the criticism focuses on the author’s elaborate aestheticization of the mechanisms of violence, without pausing to think about the little-problematized causes in those fictions.

The cultural objects with which this is thought are, on the one hand, the language reproduced ad nauseam in the media that criminalizes young people, with racist foundations. Also, on the other hand, novels like Hurricane Season and Páradais by Fernanda Melchor (commented on here), Empty Houses(2019) by Brenda Navarro (analyzed in this text) and Al otro lado (2008) by Heriberto Yépez (which is studied in this work).

As for journalistic texts, the following are included regarding the Ayotzinapa case: An Oral History of Infamy (2020) by John Gibler, The Face of the Disappeared Ones (2015) by Tryno Maldonado (available here for purchase), Ayotzinapa. The Journey of the Turtles (2015) by various journalists (available for purchase here), and the analysis from a sociological perspective From Iguala to Ayotzinapa. The Scene and the Crime (2019) by Julián Canseco and Fernando Escalante Gonzalbo (whose short version can be read here).

Likewise, the Netflix series Narcos (2015) and Somos (2021) and the films La Libertad del Diablo(2017) by Everardo González, Heli (2013) by Amat Escalante, Chicuarotes (2019) by Gael García Bernal, and Nuevo Orden (2020) by Michel Franco. It is nothing more than a sample of the wide cultural production that fuels the criminalization of this subject.

Open Resources

Betancourt, Manuel. “La Libertad del Diablo Is a Haunting Look at Victims and Victimizers of Mexico’s Drug War.” Remezcla. 50 May 2018. https://remezcla.com/film/libertad-del-diablo-everardo-gonzalez-iff-panama/ Accessed 9 Feb 2024.

Castro-Pozo, Maritza Urteaga  and  MORENO HERNANDEZ, Hugo César. Jóvenes mexicanos: violencias estructurales y criminalización. rev.estud.soc. [online]. 2020, n.73 [cited 2024-02-09], pp.44-57. Available from:

http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0123-885X2020000300044&lng=en&nrm=iso  ISSN 0123-885X.

Chen, Yin-zu. Identidad latinoamericana de jóvenes activistas en espacios políticos internacionales. Rev. Int. Investig. Cienc. Soc.[online]. 2014, vol.10, n.1 [cited 2024-02-09], pp.21-34. Available from: http://www.scielo.iics.una.py/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2226-40002014000100003&lng=en&nrm=iso   ISSN 2226-4000

Córdova Plaza, R., & Hernández Sánchez, E. (2016). “En la línea de fuego: Construcción de masculinidades en jóvenes tamaulipecos ligados al narco.” Disparidades. Revista De Antropología, 71(2), 559–577. https://doi.org/10.3989/rdtp.2016.02.010

Correa-Cabrera, Guadalupe. Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico. University of Texas Press, 2017.

—. “Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico.” Youtube. 13 Feb 2018. Uploaded by Woodrow Wilson Center. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4hN-w2jQ9A Accessed 9 Feb 2024.

Delgado Zepeda, José Ignacio. “Fernando Escalante Gonzalbo (2012), El crimen como realidad y representación: contribución para una historia del presente.” Región y Sociedad. [online]. 2014, vol.26, n.especial4 [citado  2024-02-09], pp.309-315. Disponible en: <http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1870-39252014000600013&lng=es&nrm=iso> ISSN 2448-4849

Deller, Rose. “Book Review: Gore Capitalism by Sayak Valencia.” LSE, August 1st, 2018. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2018/08/01/book-review-gore-capitalism-by-sayak-valencia/Accessed 9 Feb 2024.

Díaz-Cervantes Rufino. “Género, violencia y criminalización de jóvenes ‘banda’. Retos a la comunidad indígena y campesina de la sierra nevada poblana.”  Ra Ximhai, vol. 12, no. 1, 2016, pp.177-197. Redalyc,  https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=46146696010

Escalante Gonzalbo, Fernando and Julián Canseco Ibarra. “De Iguala a Ayotzinapa.” Nexos, 1 Nov 2019. https://www.nexos.com.mx/?p=45499.  Accessed 2 Feb 2024.

Flores Grajales, María Guadalupe. «Hacia La poética Narrativa De Fernanda Melchor». Connotas. Revista De crítica Y teoría Literarias, n.º 27, julio de 2023, pp. 63-80, doi:10.36798/critlit.v0i27.422

García, Rodrigo Gómez and Emiliano Treré. “The #YoSoy132 movement and the struggle for media democratization in Mexico.” Convergence 20 (2014): 496 – 510.

Gibler, John. Una historia oral de la infamia. Tinta limón Ediciones, 2016.

Girard, René. El chivo expiatorio. Anagrama, 1986.

Gomes, S. da S. R.; Cavalcanti, R.; Góemz Abarca”, C. de J. Notas sobre a criminalização dos movimentos sociais na América Latina: exemplos do Brasil e do México.” Mediações – Revista de Ciências Sociais, Londrina, v. 26, n. 3, p. 519–532, 2021. DOI: 10.5433/2176-6665.2021v26n3p519. Available at: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/mediacoes/article/view/44136.

Key, Jeremy. “New Order director Michel Franco on the time bomb that is waiting to explode.” Screen Daily. 7 Sep 2020. https://www.screendaily.com/features/new-order-director-michel-franco-on-the-time-bomb-that-is-waiting-to-explode/5152892.article Accessed 9 Feb 2024.

Leonardo-Loayza, Richard. “Non-Normative Motherhood, Violence and Forced Disappearances in Casas vacías, by Brenda Navarro”. Desde El Sur, vol. 14, no. 3, Sept. 2022, p. e0032, https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1403-2022-0032.

Logie, Ilse. “‘New Female Gothic’: Latin American Fiction in the Anglophone Markets through Translation.” The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Literary Translation, edited by Delfina Cabrera and Denise Kripper, Routledge, 2023, pp. 277–307, doi:10.4324/9781003139645-19

Maldonado, Tryno. Ayotzinapa, el rostro de los desaparecidos. Planeta, 2013.

Martínez Vázquez, Fernando. (2023) “Paisajes insurrectos. Rossana Reguillo Cruz, 2017. Paisajes insurrectos.  Jóvenes, redes y revueltas en el otoño civilizatorio.  Barcelona: NED Ediciones.” https://doi.org/10.22201/fesa.26832917e.2023.5.1

Paley, Dawn. Guerra neoliberal: Desaparición y búsqueda en el norte de México. Libertad bajo palabra, 2020.

—. “Cold War, Neoliberal War, and Disappearance: Observations from Mexico.” Latin American Perspectives, 48(1), 145-162. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20975001

Ramírez López, Natalia M. (2023) “New territories and cultural sensitivities: approach to research on youth identity and violence in Latin America.” Perspectivas Internacionales, 8(2), 122–147. Recuperado a partir de https://revistas.javerianacali.edu.co/index.php/perspectivasinternacionales/article/view/1140

Ritondale, Elena. (2016) “Cuerpo social y cuerpo individual: canibalismo y territorio en El otro lado de Heriberto Yépez.” Mitologías hoy. Vol. 14. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/mitologias.342 Maldonado, Tryno. Ayotzinapa, el rostro de los desaparecidos. Planeta, 2013.

Vertiz, Columba. “Gael García Bernal dirige su filme Chicuarotes en pueblo de Xochimilco afectado por los sismos.” 16 Jan 2018. https://www.proceso.com.mx/cultura/2018/1/16/gael-garcia-bernal-dirige-su-filme-chicuarotes-en-pueblo-de-xochimilco-afectado-por-los-sismos-198298.html Accessed 9 Feb 2024.

Valencia, Sayak. Gore Capitalism. MIT Press, 2018.

Zavala, Oswaldo. “Conferencia Oswaldo Zavala: Los cárteles no existen. Narcotráfico y cultura en México.” 11 Jul 2023. Youtube. Uploaded by CCUPU – UBA:FILO. https://www.youtube.com/live/DL1qF06C7d0?si=IjqjiTWm6126vYfh Accessed 9 Feb 2024. Paley, Dawn. Guerra neoliberal: Desaparición y búsqueda en el norte de México. Libertad bajo palabra, 2020.