ISTP Fieldwork: Securing of public space in Montevideo

Latin American cities struggle to keep public space accessible. Based on comprehensive qualitative interview work, ISTP Senior Research Dr. Jonas Hagmann and UdelaR PostDoc external page Dr. Diego Sanjurjo currently trace how public authorities, citizens, private companies and civil society groups contribute to urban security politics in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo. They analyse how the country’s political heritage – a statist inclination and history of military dictatorship rule especially – conditions the politics of in- and exclusion in three different sub-city sites, Ciudad Vjeja, Tres Cruses Terminal, and Montevideo Shopping/World Trace Centre.

First findings draw a complex panorama in which new government programs for integrated citizen safety, generalised video surveillance, and significant expansions of the private security sector don’t succeed in curbing growths in crime and violence, heightened public sentiments of pervasive insecurity, and polarised political debates regarding the city’s future trajectories.

Montevideo is the third case study in the external page SNSF Ambizione research programme “Securing the city: The politics and practices of urban protection”, led by Dr. Jonas Hagmann. It connects and compares to work on the Swiss cities of Zürich, Basel and Bern, the Moroccan city of Marrakech, and the Nepali capital of Kathmandu.