The Role of Illicit Economies in Transforming Latin America’s Rural Spaces: Session I

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Illicit economies have become a major driver of social and environmental change in rural spaces in Latin America. The insertion of rural communities into transnational drug trade networks has significantly altered the economic, political, and social dynamics of entire regions, especially in the ancestral territories of indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples. While Latin American governments and international donors have increasingly recognized traditional and territorial claims, they have simultaneously committed these lands for international conservation and mitigation goals and targeted them (often violently) for anti-drug trade action.

The convergence of these competing claims on rural spaces coupled with the violence provoked by the drug trade (and often state reactions to it) enable and constrain possibilities for development and governance projects on the part of rural communities and indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples. The fragile political settlements that emerge as communities, political elites, and illicit interests balance demands across scales for avoiding deforestation, promoting conservation, accelerating development, securitizing borders and internal control, respecting human and indigenous rights, and generating income are shaping new forms of rural livelihoods and resistance. Further, the multiple links between illicit and licit activities also call into question the perception of these as separate economic spheres. With these trends in mind, this set of panels seeks to examine the pathways through which illicit economic activity, and especially narco-activity, influence rural livelihoods, landscapes, governance, and economies, drawing on multi-disciplinary experiences from across Latin America.

Sub Track

• Agrarian and Rural Life

Session Organizers

• Fernando Montero, Columbia University

• Anthony Dest, University of Texas at Austin

Chair

• Laura A Sauls, Clark University

Discussant

• Charles R Hale, University of California, Santa Barbara

Individual Presentations

• Narco Robin Hoods: Community Support for Illicit Economies and Violence in Rural Spaces - Laura Blume, Boston University

• Consecuencias (in)esperadas de la política antinarcótica en el “posconflicto” - Isabel Peñaranda Currie

• The Drug Trade and Indigenous Governance in Eastern Honduras - Fernando Galeana Rodriguez, Cornell University

• Narco-Cattle Ranching or Subsistence Agriculture? Debating drivers of deforestation in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve - Jennifer A Devine, Texas State University