Exploring Narco-Sovereignty/Violence

Analyzing Illegal Networks, Crime, Violence, and Legitimation in a Peruvian Cocaine Enclave (2003-2007)

Bibliographic Data

ID2365441
AuthorsMirella Van Dun (Deurne, the Netherlands)
Year2014
Volume43
Issue4
Pages395-418
Publication date2014-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Contemporary Ethnography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0891-2416 • E-ISSN: 1552-5414
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0891241613520452
OpenAlexW2156646816
LanguageEN
Citations received26
References cited22

Often scholars identify the cocaine industry as a principal source of violence and conflict in different parts of urban and rural Latin America. As the ethnographical research in the Peruvian Upper Huallaga demonstrated, the mere presence of an illicit economy, in itself, does not always cause violence. In the Upper Huallaga's rural areas, new Peruvian small-scale firmas established forms of power and domination. This article provides a broader understanding of the relationship within the local cocaine industry between those running it (the drugs bosses or patrones) and the population. It focuses on the realities of life in these villages, where the cocaine trade, far from being only an economical system, dominated social relationships and networks. Most incidents of violence were closely related to the diminishing cocaine industry, but were also related to the actions or the lack of actions of the state security forces

Computer security · Criminology · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Ethnography · Latin Americans · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Population · Power (physics · Principal (computer security · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · Law · Politics and Society in Latin America

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