Tina Hilgers
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science at Concordia University
My research is in the field of comparative politics at the intersection of sociology, anthropology and geography.
My research and teaching activities focus mainly on urban politics and the dynamics of violence and informality. My recent work shows that structural and informal hierarchies of power continue to define several so-called ‘democratic’ practices in state-society relations.
My current research follows two main themes
The links between formal, informal and illegal spheres in the economic, political and social organisation of low-income communities in Latin American and the Caribbean
The patterns of resistance and resilience around structural urban violence in informal settings of work and housing (Brazil, Colombia and Jamaica)
Recent research projects
SSHRC Insight Grant, “Informality, Violence, and Resistance in Latin America and the Caribbean” (PI, with co-applicant Jean François Mayer) ($253,002) (2020 – 2025)
FRQSC Research Support for New Academics, “The Resilience Gap in Urban Latin America and the Caribbean: Normalizing Insecurity vs. Transforming Security” (2017-2020)
SSHRC Insight Grant, “Rights, Benefits, and Identity: Clientelistic and Democratic Representation in Latin America” (2012-2018)
Recent publications
Davis, Diane, and Tina Hilgers. (2022). "The Pandemic and Organized Crime in Urban Latin America: New Sovereignty Arrangements or Business as Usual?" Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 4(3), pp.241–256. DOI: http://doi.org/10.31389/jied.134
Hilgers, Tina, Anna Calderón, and Maxime Honigmann (Forthcoming) "Tensions between the Middle Class and the “New Middle Class” in Brazil: An Accidental Biographical Ethnography." Latin American Research Review 57(3): 536-553.
Dias Felix, Annabelle, and Tina Hilgers (eds). “Twenty Years of Community Oriented Policing in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Special Issue, Policing & Society, forthcoming.
Hilgers, Tina. 2020. “Security, Resilience, and Participatory Urban Upgrading in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Development & Change, online first, https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12595
Dias Felix, Annabelle, and Tina Hilgers. 2020. “Community Oriented Policing Theory and Practice: Global Policy Diffusion or Local Appropriation?” Policing & Society, online first, https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2020.1776280
Hilgers, Tina. 2020. “Clientelism” in Olaf Kaltmeier, Anne Tittor, Daniel Hawkins, and Eleonora Rohland (eds) The Routledge Handbook to the Political Economy and Governance of the Americas. London: Routledge.
Hilgers, Tina. 2018. “Gestión” in Alena Ledeneva (ed.) Global Encyclopaedia of Informality. London: UCL Press.
Hilgers, Tina, and Jorge Luiz Barbosa (eds). (2017). Identidade, território e política no contexto de violência na América latina. Rio de Janeiro: Observatorio de Favelas.
Hilgers, Tina, and Laura Macdonald (eds). 2017. Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: Subnational Structures, Institutions, and Clientelistic Networks. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Website
https://www.concordia.ca/artsci/polisci/faculty.html?fpid=tina-hilgers
tinahilgers.ca
llacs.ca