Violent Governance, Identity and the Production of Legitimacy: Autodefensas in Latin America

This article examines the intersections of violence, governance, identity and legitimacy in relation to autodefensas (self-defence groups) in Latin America, focusing on Mexico and Colombia. By shifting focus from the question of where legitimacy lies to how it is produced and contested by a range of groups, we challenge the often presumed link between the state and legitimacy. We develop the idea of a field of negotiation and contestation, firstly, to discuss and critique the concept of state failure as not merely a Western hegemonic claim but also a strategic means of producing legitimacy by autodefensas. Secondly, we employ and enrich the notion of violent pluralism to discuss the pervasiveness of violence and the role of neoliberalism, and to address the question of non-violent practices of governance. We argue that the idea of a field of contestation and negotiation helps to understand the complexity of relationships that encompass the production of legitimacy and identity through (non)violent governance, whereby lines between (non)state, (non)violence, and (il)legitimacy blur and transform. Yet, we do not simply dismiss (binary) distinctions as these continue to be employed by groups in their efforts to produce, justify, challenge, contest and negotiate their own and others’ legitimacy and identity

Introduction: the moral economy of the cocaine trade

The Introduction sets out the volume’s argument in nine broad steps. The first section traces the shape of the global cocaine trade from coca cultivation in the Andes to consumption on US, European, and Latin American streets. The second section considers the broader literature on commodity chains to highlight how the flow of commodities impacts on life worlds. The third focuses in to consider the mechanics that allow transactions to occur, with a specific focus on anthropological perspectives on exchange. Section four connects the intellectual framework on moral economies to broader debates on criminal violence and examines the implications of this approach for understanding local iterations of commodity chains. Parts five to seven bring the discussion back to cocaine with a consideration of the dynamics of illicit production and governance, and their implications for the lived experience of communities affected by the trade. The penultimate section lays out a framework to examine the cocaine commodity chain in a more systematic fashion. The chapter ends with an outline of the contributions to follow