A Criminal Commodity Consensus

The Coloniality of State Power, State Crime and the Transformation of Property Relations in Mexico

Bibliographic Data

ID13009107
AuthorsAlke Jen (0000-0002-5751-7946, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume7
Issue2
Publication date2018-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueState Crime Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2046-6056 • E-ISSN: 2046-6064
PublisherPluto Journals (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.13169/statecrime.7.2.0306
OpenAlexW2906871268
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited21

Mexican human rights organizations accuse the Mexican military and federal police of having taken part in tens of thousands of forced disappearances in the last decade. Curiously, the regions in which people disappear are also sites of displacement and changing patterns of land tenure and production. Yet, property relations are seldom a topic of studies on illegal state activities. Through a state theory lens, including Aníbal Quijano's notion of coloniality of power, this article examines conflicts between private property and communal land tenure such as ejidos in Mexico, as two different property regimes. The article aims to show how the state ensemble not only removes legal protection for communal tenure but also mobilizes legal as well as illegal means to force the change of communal lands into private property. Beyond that, the article also aims to show how these changes in land tenure regulation intersect with the Mexican War on Drugs

Archaeology · Commodity · Economics · Geography · Land tenure · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Power (physics · Private property · Property (philosophy · Property rights · Sociology · State (computer science · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses

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