The Two Faces of Fear

Reviews / Votes

Ana Villarreal expertly theorizes how fear and danger transform daily routines, simultaneously isolating and regrouping people, through acutely class-determined strategies. This moving ethnography of Monterrey, a wealthy and unequal city that many thought immune to violence, adds crucial nuance and depth to our understanding of the relations between violence, fear, and inequality. * Angelica Duran-Martinez, author of The Politics of Drug Violence * An outstanding ethnography of how the affluent use their resources to safeguard themselves from extreme violence, contributing to the perpetuation of class, race, and gender privilege. For a comprehensive understanding of fear and its impact on urban life, this is a must-read. * Hugo Ceron-Anaya, author of Privilege at Play * This elegant volume offers a rare insider perspective on elite fear of violence, vividly illustrating how it is fostering new forms of metropolitan isolation, concentration, and exclusion in 21st century Mexico. This is essential reading for anybody wanting to understand contemporary urban dynamics in Latin America and elsewhere. * Dennis Rodgers, Geneva Graduate Institute * Ana Villarreal offers a powerful, perceptive, and conceptually persuasive account on the impact of fear in people's everyday lives in contexts of chronic insecurity and violence. * Gema Kloppe-Santamaria, ReVista * A methodological appendix richly describes fieldwork amid war. In concluding that fear exacerbates race and class inequalities, Villarreal makes fear more central than it has been in the subfield of the sociology of emotions. She challenges micro approaches to fear by linking the micro and the macro with everyday logistics that impact urban structures. Focusing on the Mexican turf war brings warranted sociological attention south of the US. Examining the logistics of fear contributes to social scientific treatments of the drug war. * A. C. S. Swords, CHOICE * Thanks to its clear writing, compelling qualitative data, and attention to the realm of the affective and lived experience, The Two Faces of Fear is both accessible and powerful. The book is a must read for students and scholars of urban studies, fear and violence, inequalities, and emotions. * Rebecca Hanson, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity * In the beginning, we thought the movement for peace and justice [in Mexico] would transcend class differences and unify victims in a common front. Ana Villarreal's book confronts us with a reality that is far more complex, urging us to consider under what conditions, both social and symbolic, can some seek security without leading to the victimization of others. * Natalia Mendoza, Nexos *