Cuidar en medio del daño: afectos, resistencias y sostenimiento de la vida desde lo cotidiano

Abstract

This article explores practices of care, affect, and vital affirmation in contexts shaped by criminal violence in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán. Drawing on an ethnographic approach, it analyzes how women, youth, and community actors generate and sustain mutual support, everyday protection, and the reconstruction of social ties in the midst of harm. Rather than seeking to identify “best practices”, the article foregrounds the significance of fragility, play, and listening as tactics of endurance and modes of existence. It argues that even within wounded and surveilled territories, forms of life emerge that resist fear without resorting to hatred, withdrawal, or paralysis. In doing so, the article contributes to broader debates on collective care, affective resistance, and the everyday invention of possible worlds from below.