Entre abrazos y golpes... Estrategias subpolíticas de periodistas mexicanos frente al riesgo

Resumo

En.

This paper presents a descriptive study of strategies that emerged sponta- neously and are employed today by three groups of journalists in Mexico in response to the violence they face. Attacks on reporters in this country is worsening, with over 80 journalists killed over the past 15 years, not to mention the hun- dreds of other types of attacks including verbal threats, beatings, physical attacks, kidnap- pings, disappearances and forced mobilisations. This suggests the existence of permanent, systematic and structural violence and has led those affected to organize into groups called ‘networks of journalists,’ who subscribe to what may be described as Beckian (2006) ‘critical and alternative professional practices.’ These practices take a ‘subpolitical’ form in that they look outside institutional channels to provide effective solutions to problems official struc- tures cannot solve. Based on ethnographic data, we analyze the Network of Journalists of Pie (Mexico), the Network of Journalists of Juarez (Juárez, Chihuahua) and the Council of Journalists of the Papaloapan Basin (Tuxtepec, Oaxaca), in the center, north and south of the country, respectively. In closing, this paper offers a critical look at the conditions that prevent societies like Mexico from transitioning to democracy due to factors related to glo- balization, corruption, the immobility of elites and the diminished presence of civil society, which, together, make the practice of journalism a high-risk endeavour.