My colleague and senior research partner, Daniel Miller was visiting my fieldsite earlier this week. He had just arrived from his own fieldsite in Trinidad, and as I took him on a walking tour of Alto Hospicio, he kept remarking how different the two places are. They share certain aspects. They are quite warm. There is a beach nearby. People are not afraid to show some skin. Houses have gates. And yet, he told me after seeing Trini house fences, these just wouldn’t do. There is no cut glass or barbed wire on the top. They are not high enough to keep anyone out. Anyone with a friend to boost them up could be in without a problem.
photo by Daniel Miller
Later, as we sat in my apartment discussing dissemination strategies, the usual evening dog barking and car alarm ringing began. I complained about the alarms with something like “if there’s one going off every three minutes they don’t seem to be actually providing any security.” He gave me a knowing look. There’s something about the feeling of security here. The desire to have the appearance of safety even if they only function as a symbol. It’s something like the little sticker on the window that says “This house is protected by ADT security.” Danny said he’d like to get a sticker made that says “This house is protected by a sticker.”
A few days later, after Danny left, Miguel drove over to my apartment to help me with my fish tank (that I inherited with the apartment--and these fish are most definitely Chilean). With the sliding door to the balcony wide open, the car alarm sounds drifted in quite regularly. For a moment, he stopped and listened. “Is that your car?” I asked. “No, no…I don’t think so,” he responded. And we went about changing the water some more. I always assumed car alarms functioned by simply drawing attention-anyone’s-to something amiss. Yet, what Miguel was teaching me was that the car alarms did serve a purpose. People listened for their own. They took individual responsibility for the security of their own vehicle rather than relying on others to come to their rescue. And I suppose the fences may do the same. Though Danny is probably right that a serious criminal wouldn’t have much problem getting over one, it may communicate a certain individual capability to handle their own security. As a local priest told me, "neighbors like each other, but there's not much trust between them, anymore." There is no neighborhood watch group here.
A few days later, after Danny left, Miguel drove over to my apartment to help me with my fish tank (that I inherited with the apartment--and these fish are most definitely Chilean). With the sliding door to the balcony wide open, the car alarm sounds drifted in quite regularly. For a moment, he stopped and listened. “Is that your car?” I asked. “No, no…I don’t think so,” he responded. And we went about changing the water some more. I always assumed car alarms functioned by simply drawing attention-anyone’s-to something amiss. Yet, what Miguel was teaching me was that the car alarms did serve a purpose. People listened for their own. They took individual responsibility for the security of their own vehicle rather than relying on others to come to their rescue. And I suppose the fences may do the same. Though Danny is probably right that a serious criminal wouldn’t have much problem getting over one, it may communicate a certain individual capability to handle their own security. As a local priest told me, "neighbors like each other, but there's not much trust between them, anymore." There is no neighborhood watch group here.
In a lot of ways this explains the ways I have been warned about safety here. People just don’t seem to trust what might happen in public space. And the fences around houses may in fact be a way of delimiting the private from the public in a way that leaves no questions as to where the boundaries lie. And by claiming the space as private rather than public, perhaps that makes it a little safer.
One of the benefits of having Danny here was that it meant I was speaking English in public. This attracted even more attention than my usual simple fact of being noticeably white. While we walked through the market near the municipal gymnasium a few days ago, a group of vendedores asked where we were from. As we chatted, asking about all things digitally related from snapchat to international call centers, one woman, who sells clothing in the market told us people never have their phones out in public because they are afraid someone will come by and swipe it. The most recent statistics I could find were from 2008, when 1,236 non-violent robberies (the type that might result in having their cell phone stolen from their hands as they sit in the plaza, or their pocket in a busy market). This is not particularly high, roughly matching national statistics, yet I am given pause that perhaps many such thefts go unreported. About a year ago, Iquique Radio reported that online security company ESET found almost 60% of Latin American residents have had at least one cellular phone stolen. The Catholic priest also told me that the most recent statistics he has seen suggests that about 40% of Alto Hospicio residents have had some personal effect stolen in the last year. "Probably because their billfold or phone is sticking out of their pocket in a public place." While statistics like "40%" and "1,236 reported" might not necessarily reveal much, I do sense that cellular phone theft is quite common and the vendedora is correct: people know this and protect themselves by not using their phone in public.
So, I wonder then, if there is a certain “privateness” to the cell phone. And perhaps to the internet in general. Though one may interact with their friends though social media, that is generally something done while in private space. Even the local call center/internet café provides patrons with rather large cubicles while they use the computers. Though you might be airing your dirty laundry on facebook for all of your friends, the person physically next to you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) know.
So these walls, these fences, these alarms, and these cubicles…they provide a sense of delineation. A car alarm may be tripped just as easily by someone doing a bad parking job or a ball thrown amiss as by someone trying to steal it. Fences can be jumped. Cubicles can be peeked around (at least one young man quickly turned off his porn as Danny and I walked by in the internet center). But that is not the point. The point, perhaps, is to say this is mine, and this is private. If you touch this, walk past it, or look at my screen, you are transgressing a boundary. So however social, social media might be, it ideally retains a sense of the private.
One of the benefits of having Danny here was that it meant I was speaking English in public. This attracted even more attention than my usual simple fact of being noticeably white. While we walked through the market near the municipal gymnasium a few days ago, a group of vendedores asked where we were from. As we chatted, asking about all things digitally related from snapchat to international call centers, one woman, who sells clothing in the market told us people never have their phones out in public because they are afraid someone will come by and swipe it. The most recent statistics I could find were from 2008, when 1,236 non-violent robberies (the type that might result in having their cell phone stolen from their hands as they sit in the plaza, or their pocket in a busy market). This is not particularly high, roughly matching national statistics, yet I am given pause that perhaps many such thefts go unreported. About a year ago, Iquique Radio reported that online security company ESET found almost 60% of Latin American residents have had at least one cellular phone stolen. The Catholic priest also told me that the most recent statistics he has seen suggests that about 40% of Alto Hospicio residents have had some personal effect stolen in the last year. "Probably because their billfold or phone is sticking out of their pocket in a public place." While statistics like "40%" and "1,236 reported" might not necessarily reveal much, I do sense that cellular phone theft is quite common and the vendedora is correct: people know this and protect themselves by not using their phone in public.
So, I wonder then, if there is a certain “privateness” to the cell phone. And perhaps to the internet in general. Though one may interact with their friends though social media, that is generally something done while in private space. Even the local call center/internet café provides patrons with rather large cubicles while they use the computers. Though you might be airing your dirty laundry on facebook for all of your friends, the person physically next to you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) know.
So these walls, these fences, these alarms, and these cubicles…they provide a sense of delineation. A car alarm may be tripped just as easily by someone doing a bad parking job or a ball thrown amiss as by someone trying to steal it. Fences can be jumped. Cubicles can be peeked around (at least one young man quickly turned off his porn as Danny and I walked by in the internet center). But that is not the point. The point, perhaps, is to say this is mine, and this is private. If you touch this, walk past it, or look at my screen, you are transgressing a boundary. So however social, social media might be, it ideally retains a sense of the private.
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