Abstract:

The objective of this article is to present and reflect on some anthropological methodological alternatives to study criminal violence, specifically in contexts where the safety of the ethnographer and others may be in danger. The article is based on a study on memories of criminal violence in San Fernando: a municipality on the northeastern border of Mexico, near the United States, where in 2010 72 migrants were massacred and in 2011 clandestine graves were found. Specifically, three methodological alternatives that were implemented are exposed: 1) anthropology among families, 2) landscape readings and 3) digital ethnography. Among the results, it was found that these methodological alternatives are useful to capture criminal violence in specific temporalities and regions and minimize the risk during fieldwork in a border area. It is concluded that methodologies such as those used have academic and intelligence utility, but it is also necessary to rethink their conceptualization and other analysis techniques of criminal violence.

Keywords:
methodology; violence; crime; border; anthropology