Resumen

MERINO, Sergio  y  SANCHEZ, María Marcela. El problema del miedo en la ciudad: una temática para la investigación y enseñanza en la Geografía contemporánea. Rev. Univ. geogr. [online]. 2007, vol.16, n.1, pp. 203-214. ISSN 1852-4265.

This work is a brief introduction to the problem of fear, a theme in the sociocultural studies, researched by anthropologists, social communicators, sociologists, media researchers, and most recently, geographers interested in Social and Urban Geography. Those fears that pervade today's society have ceased to have that typical "magical" sense of fears in ancient times. Nowadays, the new socio-political model of the dominant societies impacts society differently, its indicators being: growing exclusion, poverty, forced migrations due to poverty or viloence, worsening conditions of employment, a escalade in violence, new visible kinds of organised crime, among others. Our starting point is the relationships that fears have with the place and the daily experience of those who live there, use its products or regulate the city. This is so, simply because as citizens we are all potential victims of fear. As an example, we have analyzed the agenda of a conference on Urban Geography focused in on "The city and fear", and inserted some thoughts and suggestions for classwork. The aim of this article is, then, to present the readership with a first approach to a some what unknown theme in our context in order to open up and enrich the agenda of topics and problems in the research and teaching of the Social Sciences, and especially of Geography.

Palabras llave : City; Fears; Investigation; Teaching.