Interaffective networks in Bogotá (Colombia): homeless, objects or subjects of fear?

Abstract

The objective of this article is to question the configuration of fear as an imaginary and mechanism of social control that points to to homeless as the main reference of this emotion in Bogotá and justifies the execution of security actions on bodies and spaces linked to this urban group. I review two specific moments: the first, the decade of the eighties, a time in which homeless people and in the city center were labeled as the main factor of fear for citizens and, consequently, “social cleaning” actions were generated. social". The second, the period before and after the police operative on “The Bronx”, in May 2016, which coincided with the dissemination of news and official statements about the risk that this population represented for the city. In the final part, present evidence about the place of homeless as victims, rather than perpetrators, and public and private security actors are identified as the main generators of the fears of this urban group. The methodology is mixed: on the one hand, I review literature about “social cleaning” and speeches from district administration entities in charge of citizen security actions. The information was analyzed through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). On the other hand, I collected statistical data on violence and crimes in Bogotá. The data was processed through retrospective descriptive analysis of time series.