Abstract This article discusses El Paso–Ciudad Juárez residents’ experiences of the ‘Great Violence of 2008–2012’ in the border region between the United States and Mexico. As a result of the Mexican government’s ‘war’ on organised crime, launched by President Felipe Calderón in 2016, the region saw a wave of violence that created mayhem, thousands of deaths, and a vast sense of insecurity among the border community. The physical sites border residents had access to – or were denied entrance to – had a fundamental significance for their everyday existence. By the same token, the refusal to succumb to spatial restrictions, or claiming space for oneself despite ongoing atrocities, served as an empowering way to deal with the threat of violence. Drawing on 54 interviews and 22 written testimonies, the article claims that the intersection of spatiality and agency is central in conceptualising experiences of security/insecurity caused by the violence. It argues that spatial strategising provided tools with which the various parties involved exercised their agency in imposing, coping with and countering violence. The discussion concludes by problematising the intersecting issues of agency, involvement and complicity as broader ethical and epistemological questions invoked by the study of violence.

中文翻译：

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“我们都参与其中”：埃尔帕索－华雷斯城边界上的“ 2008-2012年大暴力”

摘要本文讨论了埃尔帕索–华雷斯城居民在美国和墨西哥之间的边境地区“ 2008-2012年大暴力”的经历。由于墨西哥政府总统费利佩·卡尔德隆（FelipeCalderón）在2016年发起的有组织犯罪的“战争”，该地区看到了一波暴力浪潮，造成混乱，成千上万的死亡以及边境社区之间的广泛不安全感。边境居民可以进入或被拒绝进入的物理场所对其日常生存具有根本意义。同样，拒绝屈服于空间限制，或尽管暴行不断，仍拒绝占有自己的空间，是应对暴力威胁的一种授权方式。根据54次采访和22项书面证词，文章声称，空间性和代理性的交集在概念化由暴力造成的安全/不安全经历方面至关重要。它认为，空间战略提供了工具，有关各方利用这些工具来行使自己的机构实施，应对和打击暴力。讨论以对代理，参与和共谋这一相交的问题进行质疑而结束，这些问题是暴力研究引起的更广泛的伦理和认识论问题。