Abstract: This article derives from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Bogotá during the social protests that occurred between November 2019 and April 2022. It focuses on understanding the origins and dynamics of the violence employed by the state’s security forces in these instances of collective action. We argue that this violence, primarily exercised by police special units as a repressive apparatus of the state, cannot simply be explained as an undifferentiated form of domination that institutions resort to when their power is weakened. Instead, ...
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