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- Convenor:
-
Francisco Araujo Ferreira
- Location:
- Malet 539
- Start time:
- 4 April, 2014 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This multidisciplinary panel welcomes papers that explore recent changes in drug policies and debates in Latin America, as well as the effects of current national and international policies in the production, trafficking, and consumption of drugs in the region.
Long Abstract:
Latin America has been experimenting gradual but fundamental changes in drug-related policies and debates in recent years. These changes have been based on an increasing rejection to the USA-led "War on Drugs", which has proved to be a failed and harmful model, and on the emergence of alternative strategies such as harm-reduction policies, new legislative approaches through regulation and legalisation initiatives, and others. However, the "drug war" is still dominant and continues to plays a key role on national policies and international relations in the region, particularly between the US and the Andean countries where cocaine is produced. This panel welcomes papers that explore these changes in drug policies and debates, and the effects of current policies in the production, trafficking, and consumption of drugs in Latin America. The panel aims to engage with these issues and debates from a wide multidisciplinary perspective.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Jose Antonio Brambila-Ramirez (The University of Sheffield) Veronica Sanchez Medina
Paper short abstract:
How did the Mexican government communicate the war on drugs to the citizens? Could the Mexican government design and implement a coherent and homogeneous communication policy? And what were the differences to apply this policy among the main governmental institutions?
Paper long abstract:
In the context of social conflict a political communication strategy is essential. In the case of the war on drugs in Mexico, between 2007 and 2011, this was important not only because the government needed public support in order to continue with the military strategy, but also because the government needed to counteract the drug cartels´ messages.
Nevertheless, the Mexican government was unable to design and launch a coherent and homogeneous communication strategy. Each of the governmental institutions involved in the war on drugs developed its own communication policy.
The three factors that shaped the communication strategies among the governmental institutions were: institutional goals, environmental challenges and budget. In this paper, it is analysed in deeper these three elements between the two most important governmental institutions, on one hand, the Secretary of Defence (SEDENA), on the other, the Federal Police's (SSP).
The former highlighted the successes of this administration, especially, to captured mafia leaders and improved research and technology. The latter emphasised its efforts to safeguard the security and integrity of citizens. Both minimised the negative balance of the war.
In this paper, it is used data from the government and a content analysis of media outlets. In the first case (SEDENA) it is analysed the television ads campaign. In the second case (SSP) it is analysed a soap opera.
Stacey Dunlea (University of Sheffield)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores recent developments relating to coca leaf cultivation and cocaine production in Bolivia, and in particular counter-narcotics measures under the MAS administration.
Paper long abstract:
The 2005 election of the Movimiento al Socialismo's Evo Morales, a former coca farmer and leader of a coca growers' trade union, as president of Bolivia led to some speculation that the country would break completely with a US-backed coca eradication programme. Despite the fact that the coca leaf, which plays a significant part in autochthonous Andean culture, is not the same as the synthetic drug cocaine, some commentators greeted Morales's promises to defend the coca leaf and its growers as a sign that cocaine production in Bolivia would increase. Indeed, prior to the 2002 elections, which Morales lost by a narrow margin, the then-US ambassador to Bolivia, Manuel Rocha, who warned that US aid would be jeopardized should the electorate vote for 'los que quieren que Bolivia vuelva a ser un exportador de cocaína'.
This paper explores counter-narcotics measures employed by Morales and the MAS, and the extent to which they have altered the controversial forced eradication policies pursued by previous governments. The paper asks if the actions of the MAS administration can truly be considered a challenge to the 'War on Drugs', and a part of the alternative strategies emerging elsewhere in Latin American, such as Uruguay's recent decision to legalise the limited sale of marijuana.
Francisco Araujo Ferreira
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents an overview of the valley of the rivers Apurímac and Ene (VRAE), which is one of the main centres of production of coca and cocaine paste in Peru. It explores how drug-trafficking, terrorism, and state policies affect this valley and its most important local collectives and organisations.
Paper long abstract:
The valley of the rivers Apurímac and Ene (VRAE) is one of the main centres of production of coca and cocaine paste in Peru. This is a jungle area located in the southern highland region of Ayacucho, and is notorious for the presence of drug-trafficking and the last remnants of the Maoist guerrillas of Shining Path. As a result, the valley occupies a central place in counter-insurgency and drugs-related policies in Peru, and it has been somehow "demonised" in the national imaginary. This paper presents an overview of how these phenomena (drug-trafficking, terrorism, state policies) affect this valley and its most important local collectives and organisations (cocalero producers and unions, indigenous groups, NGOs), challenging dominant stereotypes about this and other cocalero valleys in Peru.
Julienne Weegels (University of Amsterdam)
Paper short abstract:
The current paper is interested in the meanings crime and crime control acquire in the context of their mediated representation in Nicaragua. How are crime and its control represented through the criminal's body, and how does police protagonism reflect on these representations?
Paper long abstract:
Images of a young street delinquent persecuted afoot by sticks and belts in the hands of angry neighbors - behind them the police - splash across the evening news. Before the crowd can pound upon the youngster the police manage to wedge him away and throw him into the back of a police truck. This is just one of many scenes of violence, death, apprehension, and police perseverance an average Nicaraguan is exposed to daily through the televised news. The current paper is interested in the meanings crime and crime control acquire in the context of their mediated representation. How does police protagonism in the media reflect on the social imagery of delinquents and prisoners? How are crime and its control represented literally through the criminal´s body? This paper attempts to answer those questions by integrating the study of the televised media´s representations of crime with extensive ethnographic research conducted among long-sentenced prisoners. Cultural criminologists note that "crime and the agencies and institutions of crime control [can be viewed] as cultural enterprises […] as richly symbolic endeavours created out of on-going human interaction and power relations [that] must be read in terms of the contested meanings they carry" (Hayward and Presdee, 2010: 3). It is on this premise that the delinquent´s body can be read as a symbolic and social site of contested representation of crime and crime control, and analyzed in terms of the cultural meanings it acquires through its mediated representation.
Arantza Gomez Arana (University of Glasgow)
Paper short abstract:
For the first time, the European Union and Latin America are joining forces against drug trafficking. Several examples help to prove this new cooperation. This paper attempts to demonstrate the reasons for such a radical change in the EU.
Paper long abstract:
The European Union (EU) and Latin America have traditionally developed relations based on trade negotiations. Other areas of cooperation such as security have not been discussed mainly due to the lack of interest on the European side. But in the last few years this state of affairs has been transformed. For the first time, the European Union and Latin America are joining forces against drug trafficking. Several examples help to prove this new cooperation. One of them is the launching of COPOLAD (Cooperation Programme on Drugs Policies Between Latin America and the European Union) in January 2011. Another example is the "Fight Against the Cocaine Trafficking Route" programme between the EU and Ameripol. The EU strategy in relation to the fight against drug trafficking for the period of 2013-2020 has shown the long-term compromise in cooperating internationally offering funding among other initiatives. These policies represent a radical change from past attitudes in relation to the effects of drug trafficking in general, and cocaine in particular; for the first time Latin America is a priority for the European Union. This paper attempts to demonstrate the reasons for such a radical change in the EU. Among them, it is the increasing security problems created in West and North Africa due to its participation in the cocaine route. Also the increase in money laundering in European countries such as Spain seems to be a strong motivation for these new policies. And finally, the acceptance that drug trafficking is an international security problem, not national.