Youth and police

Vicissitudes of field work in an urban place of poverty and violence in a Mexican city

Abstract

This article is part of a doctoral research in which I focused my interest in investigating the socialization processes of young people living in urban places of poverty and violence, having as one of the main axes, the relationships that are woven between the young people who live in these contexts with the police. The vicissitudes of fieldwork led me to reflect on the challenges and emotional management involved in anthropological work. In this article I present the reflections derived from the ethnographic experience with the police and young people, exposing some of the main findings in the investigation of the relationships that are woven between both actors and the implications of the police as a territorial agent of the State in the configuration of youth subjectivities in contexts of urban poverty and violence