This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Zilberg, E. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Gangster in guerilla face

A transnational mirror of production between the USA and El Salvador

University of California San Diego, USA

Doble cara (double/two-faced) is a key trope in Salvadoran political folklore. It is a folk theory of mimesis, which attempts to `master the absent presence of the other' through a discourse of conspiracy. The term has a history in the US-funded Salvadoran civil war. In this article, I consider how doble cara has come to be deployed around a new and pivotal social subject — Salvadoran immigrant gang youth deported from the USA — and how these deported youth emerge as a packed and displaced sign for the trauma of post-civil war violence, the failed promise of peace, and ongoing entanglements between the USA and El Salvador. The article is written in conversation with Begoña Aretxaga, who inspired many of the questions explored here.

Key Words: democracy • dialectical • image • gang and state violence • globalization • mimesis • nationalism • representation politics of memory • terrorism • zero tolerance policies

Anthropological Theory, Vol. 7, No. 1, 37-57 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1463499607074289


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				G. A. Jones Children and development II: 'youth', violence and juvenile justice Progress in Development Studies, October 1, 2008; 8(4): 345 - 348. [PDF]