Marquez.4
TODAY: chapter 4 of Marquez
--Marquez’s focus in chapter 4 is on the construction of youth, and, more specifically, on
the construction of delinquency
--I want to focus today on 3 things:
--power and control
--the production of knowledge and what counts as authoritative knowledge
--the bureaucratic construction of “clients”
1. power and control
--Marquez is very clear in this chapter about the views of the state, the media, and the
population at large regarding street youth.
--although couched in the language of protection, the apparatus of the state is really about
control
--and WHY does the state and the population at large want to control street youth? ASK
CLASS
--because they threaten the moral order
--(revisit overhead from Ruth Smith)
--they display characteristics that are markers of disorder rather than order
--they display characteristics that are markers of savagery rather than civilization
--again, what is particularly noteworthy here is that the disorder
represented by street youth becomes problematic when it spills over its
erstwhile containers – the barrios – to infect the rest of society: when
street youth start occupying spaces that they aren’t supposed to occupy.
--when this happens, there is the feeling that society as a whole is
falling apart
--street youth start out being representative of that falling apart, but
then they get transformed into the cause of that falling apart
--this transformation is KEY: street kids become the symbolic repositories of all that is
wrong and they get transformed into the CAUSE of all that is wrong.
--see pp.113-114
--QUOTE p.118
--also: top p. 119: outsider, invader, occupiers – homeless shelter in Lethbridge
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--what I want you to notice is how the powers that be in Venezuela (state, media, elite)
work to devolve responsibility for homelessness among youth to the youth themselves,
and to the cultures in which they live
--they focus on two causes of delinquency:
1. dysfunctional families
2. barrios, which are by definition centers of “moral corruption” (143)
--and you can see this effort at work in the move from seeing street youth
as representative of society falling apart to seeing them as the cause of
society falling apart: structural factors have been “disappeared”
OK, so we know that Venezuelan society is concerned about controlling street youth –
they need to be contained, they need to be reeducated in order to neutralize the threat they
pose to society
Ruth Smith: there are 2 ways of dealing with groups that have been constructed as
outside the boundaries of society (or of the moral order)
1st, you can extend society to encompass the street youth (ie, change society so
that street youth are included – this would entail a structural focus)
2nd, you can reform the street youth to fit society (ie, make them change so that
they are part of rather than outside of the moral order
WHICH is at work in Venezuela?
OK, so, where does the POWER to exert control come from?
--REMEMBER that power, even if it consists of outright coercion, often demands some
sort of justification/legitimation
--in the case of street youth in Venezuela, power is justified on the basis of knowledge—
of expert and authoritative knowledge of the street kids.
CONCEPT OF AUTHORITATIVE KNOWLEDGE (overhead) (most have encountered
in either 1000 or 2600, but important concept to remember, since knowledge is the
business that most of us are up to in the university)
--concept was developed in medical anthropology, to gain understanding of what happens
in settings in which there are multiple knowledges present
EX: contractions during labor
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4 Features of authoritative knowledge
1. Authoritative knowledge is defined as the knowledge that dominates, that holds
weight.
--it’s not about being right or wrong, but about being considered right.
2. Authoritative knowledge is not a given, but it is achieved in any particular
setting. Its position of authority must be produced and asserted on an ongoing
basis.
3. The establishment of a particular form of knowledge as authoritative in a
particular context entails the delegitimization of other available knowledge. In
some cases, the other knowledge is explicitly devalued, while in other cases, it is
not recognized as existing in the first place.
4. Claims to authoritative status are often based on science or other forms of
valued knowledge, e.g., priestly knowledge
SO: we have a connection between knowledge and power
--Foucault on knowledge/power
--construct knowledge in order to assert control
--what Foucault did was make a connection between bodies of knowledge and what he
called disciplines
--but he used the term discipline in two ways
1. he used discipline to refer to scholarly disciplines, such as sociology or
anthropology or psychology or medicine
2. he used discipline to refer to disciplinary institutions, like prisons, schools,
hospitals, church confessionals
--SO: what Foucault is all about in his work on discourse is showing the relations
between disciplines defined as bodies of knowledge and disciplinary practices in
terms of forms of social control and social possibility
SO: one way to think about authoritative knowledge is in relation to this kind of
connection Foucault makes between knowledge and power
ANOTHER way to think about this is in terms of bureaucracy, which is about the
administration of programs that are meant to be in the interests of society
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--bureaucracy is characterized by
--legal rules
--a salaried administrative staff
--the specialization of function
--the authority of the office, not the person
--the keeping of written records and documents
--the INAM (Instituto Nacional del Menor) bureaucracy that we can see at work in the
CAI (centers for immediate attention) were based on legislation
--Marquez gives us an overview of this legislation in this chapter
1. the penal code of 1863: included minor in laws dealing with theft, and with the law
against vagrants and rogues, which was applied to "“he sons of families and orphans
who shocked people through their bad habits and their lack of respect for their
parents, mentors, or tutors” (124), with penalities including fines and short jail times.
Also, vagrants had to serve as apprentices (low wage labor).
2. Code of 1873: focus on reeducating minors who had committed transgressions (125).
3. Code of 1898 stipulated that minors who had committed transgressions had to be
reeducated in reeducation establishments rather than at home (125); but then
reeducation at home was reinstituted in 1904
4. Minors’ Code of 1939: created juvenile court. Established that it was the state’s duty
“to assume the tutelage, education,and protection of those minors under 18 years of
age who have been abandoned or have committed an offense” (126-7).
5. Revision to the code of minors’ in 1949: youth couldn’t be imprisoned for crimes
committed “without discernment.” State takes on increasingly protectionist role
6. Ley tutelar de menores 1980: minors cannot be deprived of their freedom – instead
send to reeducation center. Focus on “at risk” kids.
NOW: I don’t expect you to remember the details of all these changes, but I do want to
draw your attention to TWO patterns:
FIRST: the gradual move over time from a discourse of outright control (coercion) to one
of protection and reeducation (the state as benign and beneficient)
2nd, debate over time about what constitutes a minor, and what constitutes a vagrant, etc.
NOTE the changes in age limits
--in some cases, kids under 9 were considered to bear no responsibility for their acts
(penal code of 1863), then it went up to 12 (code of 1916). Where are the cut off points?
When does a kid need to go to reeducation center, and when do they need to go to jail?
(NOTE that we have similar debates in North America – certainly in the US – about
when we should treat minors as adults in the criminal justice system.)
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SO: AGAIN, I don’t really care if you know the details of these laws, but that you
recognize that there have been changes over time that reflect changing ideas of youth and
of delinquency.
And these changing ideas come from AUTHORITATIVE KNOWLEDGE that is
produced about youth and delinquency.
SO: let’s go back to the concept of authoritative knowledge and see how it works in
relation to street youth in Venezuela.
FIRST: Authoritative knowledge is defined as the knowledge that dominates, that
holds weight.
--it’s not about being right or wrong, but about being considered right.
--what knowledges are present in this case?
--knowledge of the economy (local, national, global)
--knowledge of social structure
--the kids’ knowledge of their experiences
--psychological/psychiatric/social work knowledge of the kids’ families and
personalities
--what knowledge counts?
--psychological/psychiatric/social work knowledge of the kids’ families and
personalities
SO: there are lots of kinds of knowledges present, but only some hold weight, only some
count
TWO EXAMPLES:
1. Oveiwin’s case: what’s his version of events? (abuse from Freddie, including
threats to his girlfriend, fear, barrio gun justice).What’s the version given by the
experts? (castration and masturbatory complexes) (pp.140-143)
2. statistical information:

first, the stats are inconsistent. Although everyone agrees the numbers are
rising, different organizations give different numbers

second – and this is key – what do these numbers tell us and what don’t
they tell us (QUOTE p. 120)
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SECOND: Authoritative knowledge is not a given, but it is achieved in any
particular setting. Its position of authority must be produced and asserted on an
ongoing basis.
--how is authoritative knowledge achieved in this setting?
--bureaucratic productions: the pyschologists’ reports
--constructions in the media (constant reports)
THIRD: The establishment of a particular form of knowledge as authoritative in a
particular context entails the delegitimization of other available knowledge. In some
cases, the other knowledge is explicitly devalued, while in other cases, it is not
recognized as existing in the first place.
--Marquez points out how knowledge of the particular economic/social circumstances in
which the kids find themselves is nowhere to be seen in the kids’ written records. This
knowledge is erased, not recognized; it doesn’t exist.
FINALLY: Claims to authoritative status are often based on science or other forms
of valued knowledge.
--psychiatry
--psychology
--social work
--sociology: criminology, deviance
QUESTIONS?
This idea of authoritative knowledge tells us something about how bureaucracy works.
--bureaucracy, like social policy, doesn’t work to respond to what is out there and needs
attending to: at one level it creates “what’s out there” so that it can respond to it in
particular ways.
--people who work in a bureaucracy have to mediate between the needs of the
organization and the demands of its constituents. This mediation consists in part of
transforming these constituents, who are otherwise complex human beings, into
categories/attributes that can be processed by the organization. It is this transformation
that allows the organization to fulfill its function, by providing a basis on which services
are rendered to individuals now constituted as “clients.”
--when the people who work in the bureaucracy are pressured – and this was clearly the
case with the bureaucrats (SOCIAL TECHNICIANS) that Marquez worked with, who
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were underpaid, underresourced, and overworked – they are likely to employ short-cuts,
and these short-cuts often include various categorizations. These categorizations are
likely to reflect dominant views (the undeserving poor, delinquents)
IN THE END, Marquez’s major point in this chapter is that all the laws supposedly set up
for the protection of the kids are really set up for the protection of “society” and of the
wealthy.
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Features of authoritative knowledge
 Authoritative knowledge is defined
as the knowledge that dominates,
that holds weight.
 Authoritative knowledge is not a
given, but it is achieved in any
particular setting. Its position of
authority must be produced and
asserted on an ongoing basis.
 The establishment of a particular
form of knowledge as authoritative
in a particular context entails the
delegitimization of other available
knowledge.
 Claims to authoritative status are
often based on science or other forms
of valued knowledge.
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