Localized power networks in popular Caracas' neighborhoods: Looking to policy making from the barrio

Many analysis of the dynamics linking the public from popular neighborhoods and the State in the process of policy making have a tendency to separate the entity of the barrio in one hand, and the actors who try to have a political influence on it in another. In this way, analysis incurs on the risk of fixating these relationships, undermining the social dynamics hidden behind what seems to be the encounter of two separate actors. We propose an approach in which the policy making is considered by the observation of the social logics that shape the relationships between those who are involved in this process (street level bureaucrats, social movement’s representatives and citizens). Further more, we propose to analyze how the network of policy making is an intrinsical element of the social structure of the barrio. In this way, we should be able to understand the social implication of people of popular neighborhoods in the building of new policies giving them access to the advantages that the welfare State is supposed to guarantee to all citizens. Access in neighborhoods is an everyday work, and the barrio habitants are the example of this work.

This proposal is based on fieldwork-collected data on the popular neighborhoods of the city of Caracas, in Venezuela during the spring of 2013 and 2014.