Communal Intimacy and the Violence of Politics: Understanding the War on Drugs in Bagong Silang, Philippines

Communal Intimacy and the Violence of Politics explores the notoriously brutal Philippine war on drugs from below. Steffen Bo Jensen and Karl Hapal examine how the war on drugs folded itself into communal and intimate spheres in one Manila neighborhood, Bagong Silang. Police killings have been regular occurrences since the birth of Bagong Silang. Communal Intimacy and the Violence of Politics shows that although the drug war was introduced from the outside, it fit into and perpetuated already existing gendered and generational structures. In Bagong Silang, the war on drugs implicated local structures of authority, including a justice system that had always been deeply integrated into communal relations. The ways in which the war on drugs transformed these intimate relations between the state and its citizens, and between neighbors, may turn out to be the most lasting impact of Duterte's infamously violent policies.

Steffen Bo Jensen is Professor of Global Refugee Studies at the University of Aalborg and a Senior Researcher at DIGNITY―Danish Institute Against Torture. He is the author of Gangs, Politics, and Dignity in Cape Town.

Karl Hapal is Assistant Professor in the College of Social Work and Community Development at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He is the author or coauthor of several articles about police violence in the Philippines.