Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that a cultural dispute is produced between opposing social norms within a stigmatised, excluded shanty town in Santiago de Chile. These distinctions deepen the cultural and social fragmentation within the community and situate the neighbourhood on the symbolic periphery of the city.

Paper long abstract:

Everyday violence, fragmentation of the cities and absence of the State from the poorest and more excluded districts have been taking place in the last two decades. In this context, it is clear that violent crime has a significantly fracturing effect on society. This paper will present an ethnographic research conducted in a stigmatised, excluded shanty town of Santiago de Chile. I argue that inhabitants arrange strategies to cope with all kinds of undergoing violence taking place within the neighbourhood.

In order to cope with the structural stigma and violence, a cultural dispute is produced between opposing social norms; the community divides itself into two opposing status groups, each with its own value orientation. The complex social class distinctions used outside the shanty town are mirrored and built up inside to differentiate people from each other. They are not simply instrumental but also expressive in operation, which means that not only do they keep people alive, but also enable them to live with honour, infusing public social situations with meaning.

While in the past the shanty town was in Santiago's outskirts, today it seems to be placed on the symbolic periphery of the city. The symbolic periphery refers to the stigma of been a violent and dangerous community with an identity of resistance, something that in a mirror game mutually reinforce the fragmentation processes and urban segregation. The final outcome is a deepening in social and cultural fragmentation within the community.