Published
Nov 8, 2017Page count
256 pagesISBN
978-1447341697Dimensions
198 x 129 mmImprint
Policy PressPublished
Nov 8, 2017Page count
256 pagesISBN
978-1447341680Dimensions
198 x 129 mmImprint
Policy PressPublished
Nov 8, 2017Page count
256 pagesISBN
978-1447341710Dimensions
Imprint
Policy PressPublished
Nov 8, 2017Page count
256 pagesISBN
978-1447341727Dimensions
Imprint
Policy Press
Dead-End Lives
“Julia” nervously emerges from her shabby tent in the suburban wastelands on the outskirts of Madrid to face another day of survival in one of Europe’s most problematic ghettos: she is homeless, wanted by the police, and addicted to heroin and cocaine. She is also five months pregnant and rarely makes contact with support services.
Welcome to the city shadows in Valdemingómez: a lawless landscape of drugs and violence where the third world meets the Wild West. Briggs and Monge entered this area with only their patience, some cigarettes and a mobile phone and collected vivid testimonies and images of Julia and others like her who live there. This important book documents what they found, locating these people's stories and situations in a political, economic and social context of spatial inequality and oppressive mechanisms of social control.
Dr Daniel Briggs is a Consultant to the British Foreign Office who works part time at the Universidad Europea in Madrid, Spain. As a researcher, writer and inter-disciplinary academic who studies social problems, he has undertaken ethnographic research into social issues from street drug users to terminally ill patients; from refugees to prostitutes; and from gypsies to gangs and deviant youth behaviours. He also lectures across the social sciences and has published widely.
Rubén Monge Gamero has a first-class undergraduate degree in Criminology from Universidad Europea and his final year project was based on participant observation of Valdemingómez. He recently concluded a Masters in Intelligence Analysis and hopes to be a police officer.
Introduction: Welcome to Valdemingómez;
Politics, ‘democracy’ and the ideology of the postmodern city;
Madrid: History, social processes and the growth in inequality;
Drugs, cultural change and drug markets;
Journeys to dependence;
Life in the city shadows: Work, identity and social status;
The council, police and health services: An impasse to solutions;
Post dependency: What next?;
Not really the conclusion;
Epilogue.
