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The Political Economy Of Violence: Toward An Understanding Of The Gender-Based Murders Of Ciudad Juarez, Deborah M. Weissman

Deborah M. Weissman

This article provides an interpretive account of the political economy of violence localized in Cd. Juarez, Mexico. It examines the socioeconomic conditions attending decades during a period of rapid transformation to an export economy as the environment in which violence against women has assumed endemic proportions. The serial murders of women have been alternately problematized as deeds of criminal deviants, as a reactionary gendered responses to women replacing men in the wage labor force, and as the failure of the state to exercise local authority. This article argues for a more comprehensive analysis that includes the above theories without bracketing …