Geographical Imagination and Experiences of Violence and Violence Prevention in Post-Soviet Space

Abstract

Institutional actors in urban areas in Latvia are increasingly concerned about reducing violence on multiple scales and temporalities. Imagining such achievements, however, often too easily focuses on the aesthetics of security and infrastructure in public space that obscure the social causes of violence and effects this has on unequal development and social marginalization. Drawing on fieldwork on practices of domestic violence prevention in three Latvian urban areas during the autumn and winter of 2019, this paper examines how the geographical imagination of where violence resides connects violence prevention and spatial development as projects of European modernisation in post-Soviet space. We identify four spatial fields most often associated with violence: (1) neighbourhoods and infrastructural elements, (2) dark and isolated spaces, (3) spaces associated with intoxication, and (4) private spaces. We analyse the most common individual and institutional strategies for violence prevention in each of these fields, noting the logics of dispossession, surveillance, and connectivity behind them. We show how gendered practices and disciplining are emphasised on an individual level, while spatial fixes to violence in public space often focus on men’s violence against men. All in all, we show how violence prevention figures in imagining living in ‘European’ spatial and institutional infrastructural regimes.

Keywords:

• Gender
• geographical imagination
• Latvia
• post-Soviet
• violence

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Artūrs Pokšāns, Māra Neikena and Kate Dudure for invaluable help in gathering data used for writing this article. We are thankful to Aivita Putniņa, Gareth E. Hamilton and our anonymous reviewers for reviewing our work and suggesting various improvements. Finally, our gratitude goes towards our fieldsites and people who welcomed us there.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Latvian Council of Science under Grant lzp-2018/1-0068.

Notes on contributors

Kristians Zalāns

Kristians Zalāns is a researcher at the University of Latvia in the department of Cultural and Social Anthropology. His research interests focus on violence, power relations in the city and affect theory.

Kārlis Lakševics

Kārlis Lakševics is a lecturer and a researcher at the University of Latvia in the department of Cultural and Social Anthropology. His work focuses on political ecology, urban development, right to the city and data economy.

Ilze Mileiko

Ilze Mileiko is a researcher at the University of Latvia in the department of Cultural and Social Anthropology. Her main research interests are biotechnology, sexuality, gender, family, violence and totalitarian regimes.