Security Assemblages at the Margins of Mexico City 1

The chapter draws its analytical inspiration from assemblage theory. The assemblage perspective particularly draws on the integration of basic insights of Deleuze and Latour by scholars working in the realm of Urban Studies, Graham and Marvin, Latour and Hermanet, Surveillance Studies, Haggerty and Ericson and International Relations. Although urban security assemblages can make a positive contribution to the local (in)security situation, it must be recognized that they also function on the basis of symbolic and disciplinary power that puts constraints upon the security practices individuals can pursue within a given assemblage structure. While the first assemblage configuration operated beyond the state, another assemblage emerged from efforts to be protected from state security and law enforcement. This chapter analyzes different strategies and practices of politics in and through which the residents of the marginalized Mexico City neighborhood of Iztapalapa engage in everyday practices of micro-level security governance and conflict resolution.