Full Description
Official stories say that violence in Latin America is a product of criminal activity and the drug trade. Organized Violence exposes how that narrative serves corporate and state interests and de-politicizes events that have more to do with logistics infrastructure, social control, and the extractive industries than with cocaine. Global capital and violence reinforce conditions that fortify the current economic order, and whether it be the military, police, or death squads that pull the trigger, economic expansion benefits from repressive activities carried out under the guise of fighting crime. "This book situates organized criminal violence in Latin America within the region's broader political and economic dynamics. The result is a provocative contribution to the emerging study of the political economy of criminal violence and new insights into the role that coercive criminal actors play in extractive industries." —Eduardo Moncada, author of Cities, Business, and the Politics of Urban Violence in Latin America "This volume represents a major contribution to the scholarship on the relationship between capitalism and violence, providing crucial new empirical and theoretical perspectives. It is also a pressing topic not just for scholarly research, but for the pursuit of social justice and human rights in the hemisphere—as such, it will make an important contribution beyond the academy, as well." —Christy Thornton, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University Contributors: Patricia Alvarado Portillo, Michelle Arroyo Fonseca, Paula Balduino de Melo, Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Ana Del Conde, Arturo Ezquerro-Cañete, Mary Finley-Brook, Antonio Fuentes Díaz, Simon Granovsky-Larsen, Carlos Daniel Gutiérrez-Mannix, Elva F. Orozco Mendoza, Rosalvina Otálora Cortés, Dawn Paley, Heriberto Paredes Coronel, Jorge Rebolledo Flores, Tyler Shipley, Luis Solano
Contents
List of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations
Maps: Conflict Sites Featured in the Book
Introduction Organized Violence and the Expansion of Capital
Simon Granovsky-Larsen and Dawn Paley
PART I: CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA
Chapter 1: Extreme Energy Injustice and the Expansion of Capital
Mary Finley-Brook
Chapter 2: "The Most Dangerous Country in the World": Violence and Capital in Post-Coup Honduras
Tyler Shipley
Chapter 3: Under Siege: Peaceful Resistance to Tahoe Resources and Militarization in Guatemala
Luis Solano
Chapter 4: Deadly Soy: The Violent Expansion of Paraguay's Agro-Extractive Frontier
Arturo Ezquerro-Cañete
Chapter 5: "And Then the Palm Farmers Came": Violence and Women's Resistance in the Colombian Afro-Pacific Region
Paula Balduino de Melo
Chapter 6: Coal and Conflict: Transnational Investment, Violence, and the Extraction of Mineral Resources in Colombia
Rosalvina Otálora Cortés
PART II: MEXICO
Chapter 7: Oil, Gas, and Guns: War, Privatization, and Violence in Tamaulipas, Mexico
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera and Carlos Daniel Gutiérrez-Mannix
Chapter 8: Legal and Illegal Violence in Mexico: Organized Crime, Politics, and Mining in Michoacán
Ana Del Conde and Heriberto Paredes Coronel
Chapter 9: Criminal Violence and Armed Community Defence in Mexico
Antonio Fuentes Díaz
Chapter 10: Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán: From Mining Enclave to Global Hub
Patricia Alvarado Portillo
Chapter 11: Elites, Violence, and Resources in Veracruz, Mexico
Michelle Arroyo Fonseca and Jorge Rebolledo Flores
Chapter 12: Punitive Dispossession: Authoritarian Neoliberalism and the Road to Mass Incarceration
Elva F. Orozco Mendoza
Conclusion: Violence, Expansion, Resistance
Simon Granovsky-Larsen and Dawn Paley
Acknowledgements
About the Contributors
Index
