Applying ideas from Karl Marx’s Capital and juxtaposing them with stories from the novels of Gabriel García Márquez, this talk aims to show why narco-frontiers are qualitatively and quantitatively different from drugless commodity frontiers.
Narco-Realism: A Commodity Frontier on Drugs | ACCESS Seminar
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Wollongong Campus
Building 21, Room G04
Presenter
Associate Professor Teo Ballvé, Department of Geography and the Peace & Conflict Studies Program at Colgate University
Abstract
Why does cocaine trafficking induce such turbo-charged forms of agrarian change and environmental destruction? Are cocaine booms in frontier spaces any different from those sparked by more “traditional” commodities? Applying ideas from Karl Marx’s Capital and juxtaposing them with stories from the novels of Gabriel García Márquez, this talk aims to show why narco-frontiers are qualitatively and quantitatively different from drugless commodity frontiers. A look at the dark Magical Realism at work in these spaces reveals their irreconcilable contradictions: narco-frontiers are spaces where perceptions of statelessness coexist with hyper-militarization; where the law gets suspended to quell lawlessness; where grinding poverty coincides with spectacular wealth; and where gangsters become philanthropists and governments become mafias.
Biography
Teo Ballvé, author of The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia (2020, Cornell University Press), is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and the Peace & Conflict Studies Program at Colgate University.