Zero-Tolerance in Catalonia: Policing the Other in Public Space
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Zero‑Tolerance in Catalonia: Policing the Other in Public Space Martin Lundsteen1,4 · Miquel Fernández González2,3 Accepted: 3 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Recent studies have argued for more nuanced understandings of zero tolerance (ZT) polic‑ ing, rendering it essential to analyze the significance and actual workings of the policies in practice, including the context in which they are introduced. This article aims to accom‑ plish this through a comparison of two case studies in Catalonia: one in the neighbor‑ hood of Raval in Barcelona and one in Salt—a municipality in the comarca (or county) of Girona. We identify a transformation in the use of ZT policies in Catalonia and a con‑ tradiction between their social effects and proclaimed objectives. This article attempts to address how specific sociocultural groups gain power and privilege from these policies. The main argument is that a set of commonsensical ideas have become hegemonic, which allows and naturalizes certain sociocultural practices in urban space, while persecuting oth‑ ers, fundamentally pitting two categories against each other: the desired civil citizen and the undesirable and uncivil stranger.
Introduction Researchers have been calling for a more accurate and nuanced rendering of the actual processes of policing—for an analysis that goes beyond the set of normative statements on which the zero tolerance (ZT) policies are based and for attention to the agents, discursive and relational aspects involved (e.g., Stuart 2015). Likewise, others have argued for the
* Martin Lundsteen [email protected] Miquel Fernández González [email protected] 1
Research Group on Reciprocity (GER) and Observatory of the Anthropology of Urban Conflict (OACU), Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford, St Cross Road, Oxford OX1 3UL, UK
2
Research Group on Exclusion and Social Control (GRECS) of the la Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
3
Sociology Department, Faculty of Political Science and Sociology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Building B2, Central Axis Avenue, Cerdanyola del Vallès, 08193 Barcelona, Spain
4
Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Ramon Trias Fargas, 25‑27, 08005 Barcelona, Spain
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need to attend to contexts in which ZT policies are implemented and recognition of how they might differ from Anglo-Saxon realities (Galdon-Clavell 2016). The present article is based on the premise that a large part of the literature has focused mainly on: (a) the theoretical evolution of the underlying ideas of ZT (a history of the approach, so to speak); (b) abstract implementation of the ZT policies (often implying an acritical social acceptance of them); (c) limited case studies (with a primary focus on policing of specific populations, such as homeless individuals or prostitutes); and d) spe‑ cific physical spaces of urban areas. Despite some interesting exceptions (some of which have been quite important for t
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