La Carpio: Exposing The
Hidden Violence Of
Poverty and
Marginalization In Costa
Rica
By Lynn Schneider
The community of La
Carpio, a poor San Jose
neighborhood, is a
paradigmatic case of the
challenges that
legitimized structural
violence poses to peace
in Costa Rica.
La Carpio’s 40,000
residents, around half
of whom are immigrants
from Nicaragua and other
Central American
countries, live in an
area of 296 square
kilometers, surrounded
on two sides by rivers
and another by a
landfill which receives
over 700 tons of waste
daily.
Founded by squatters in
the mid-1990s, waves of
poor families have
continued to inhabit La
Carpio at rapid rates,
moving into increasingly
hazardous zones due to
limited space.
Although schools, health
clinics, and a single
paved road have been
constructed in the
community due to
residents’ ongoing
pressure on the
government, this
infrastructure remains
inadequate. Over half of
the crowded population
lives below the poverty
line (compared with 22%
of the national
population) and has no
formal employment, and
few residents have title
to their land.
Costa Rica’s reputation
is one of a social
democracy, a peaceful
society with little
inequality and
first-rate ecological
practices and policies.
Yet this reputation,
perpetuated abroad and
within Costa Rica, is in
large part a myth
reflecting more how
Costa Ricans like to
think of their nation
than the reality that
exists.
A look at the living
conditions and status of
the poor residing in
marginalized communities
reveals that in fact
there exist great
inequality, violence,
discrimination,
environmental injustice
and insecurity, and
basic needs that go
unmet.
These forms of
structural violence
hinder the nation’s
progress toward building
both negative and
positive peace, yet they
are perpetuated and
legitimized by cultural
violence
Hostile perceptions of,
and attitudes towards,
immigrants are
reinforced and
perpetuated by the media
and xenophobic
discourses, making it
acceptable for Costa
Ricans to blame
immigrants for
unpleasant aspects of
their society.
This generates cultural
violence, as Costa Rican
society dehumanizes
immigrants, placing them
in the category of the
disliked ‘Other’ who is
violent and bad-natured,
the source of the
nation’s social
problems, and therefore
deserving of poverty and
injustice. This
differentiation between
the nature of immigrants
and Costa Ricans is,
however, a mere social
construction that serves
as a smokescreen to
obscure the structural
aspect of poverty and
inequality. |
