Disruptive culture: Violence and cultural self-management in Tijuana, 2001–2017

Abstract

This article addresses the relationship between culture, violence and urban transformation in Tijuana from 2001 until 2017, a period characterized by extreme disruptions to everyday life and the emergence of citizens self-managed cultural initiatives after the border crisis prompted by 9/11 terrorist attacks. While violence was not an extraordinary affair in the city, this period saw a shift in its characteristics and function as a regulating force of the urban network. At the same time, a citizens' drive of the city's cultural life recognizable since the 1990s transformed their objectives, modes of operation and function, in what we will argue became a stabilizing reaction to these disruptions. We will introduce the notion of ‘cultural urban assemblage’ to discuss the role that culture has played in assembling Tijuana during this acute rise of violence.