Overview
- Presents direct testimonial evidence on the experiences of paid assassins of Mexico’s drug cartels
- Testimonial narratives of the sicarios that complicate and challenge the theoretical approaches to narcoviolence
- Offers new perspectives on narcoviolence with regard to questions of borders, youth, gender and good/evil
Part of the book series: New Directions in Latino American Cultures (NDLAC)
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Table of contents (5 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Listening to Sicarios presents new insights into the lives of paid assassins of Mexico’s drug trafficking syndicates from the perspectives of the assassins themselves. Based on an extraordinary series of ethnographic interviews carried out in the wake of the record levels of narcoviolence experienced in Ciudad Juárez between 2008 and 2012, this study analyzes the ways in which these young men interpret their actions across four key thematic axes: border infrastructures, youth and responsibility, masculinity and sentiment, and ethics: good vs. evil.
It argues that sicarios follow a career path within a criminal corporate infrastructure that is especially robust in Mexican border cities. It also explores how sicarios understand youthful innocence in relation to adult accountability in the realm of violence that is frequently meted out by young men on other young men. It then analyzes sicarios’ expressions of feelings of power that may boost their sense of virility, aswell as feelings of fear and regret that imply weakness. Finally, it examines how sicarios defend their personal integrity in the face of a public discourse that views their acts as savage.Reviews
where one can live to kill and kill to make a living. Listening to Sicarios is an
illuminating work that incorporates the voices of young sicarios, a must read to
understand the banality of evil, the structural violences, and treacherous death
and impunity that run through our cities.”
—José Manuel Valenzuela Arce, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Arturo Chacón Castañón worked as a journalist, covering narcoviolence in Ciudad Júarez. He went on to earn a PhD in Social Sciences from the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, where he is currently Professor of Journalism. He is author of various publications on youth and violence in Ciudad Juárez.
Robert McKee Irwin is Deputy Director of the Global Migration Center at the University of California Davis, where he coordinates the digital storytelling project Humanizando la Deportación. He is author of numerous publications on gender, migration, borders and cinema in contexts of Mexican and Mexican American cultures.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Listening to Sicarios
Book Subtitle: Narcoviolence in Ciudad Juárez, 2008-2012
Authors: Arturo Chacón Castañón, Robert McKee Irwin
Series Title: New Directions in Latino American Cultures
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94118-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-94117-8Published: 01 March 2022
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-94120-8Published: 02 March 2023
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-94118-5Published: 28 February 2022
Series ISSN: 1554-4028
Series E-ISSN: 2634-520X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VII, 125
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Latin American Culture, Criminology and Criminal Justice, general