Narco-Geographies:
A Feminist Political Ecology of the War on Drugs in Mexico

Introduction: The war on drugs.

Drug trafficking has been present in Mexico since the late 1970s, during this decade also Mexico began its journey to neoliberalism and a wave of changes that led to today’s state of war. However, in 2006, when the Mexican government implemented a military intervention with the goal of decreasing drug violence, the dynamics between cartels, politicians, and the private sector shifted to disturbing paths. The war on drugs has served as a tool to repress oppositions towards neoliberal policies in Mexico and to hide the complexities that lie in this national issue  (Mercille, 2011). Moreover, the increasing influence of drug cartels within governmental systems facilitates them the process of embedding themselves in the landscape without the need to hide from the public, acquiring new territories, and fomenting violence. According to a recent study by the Neotropica Foundation in collaboration with the regional research program for development and environment, drug-trafficking is the main cause of ecosystem services losses in conservation areas in the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (PRISMA, 2019). Since the early 2000s, it has been reported the correlation between drug-trafficking and related criminal activities and the exponential loss of forest areas (McSweeney et al, 2014). This puts at risk all conservation efforts that are intended in remote biodiversity areas, affecting the lifestyle of locals since they are pushed to either relocate or stop performing their activities and also abruptly stopping all international conservation programs from developing their intended objectives in the area.


This paper explores through feminist political ecology lens the entanglements  of
the environmental and social dimensions of the war on drugs in the northern region of Mexico in terms of power relationships that define who gets access to, or control over, natural resources and the new geographies being traced by drug cartels that have reconfigured the environment. Although there have been calls from researchers in the political ecology field for the exploration of the political ecology of drug-trade, there still have not concrete papers that aboard this topic (Robbins, 2011). Thus, the intention of this paper is to provide primary explorations of a possible framework for considering the intersectionality of the ever-broadening environmental, cultural, and social factors to challenge traditional causes, definitions, and understandings of the drug trade in Mexico and the country’s narco-culture.


The setting: Remote natural areas and biodiversity conservation

The lesser-known collateral victims from the war on drugs is the environment, specifically the coastal and forest ecosystems which lands are cleaned for developing whole infrastructures for cocaine and marijuana production. Nevertheless, this is not the only way drug cartels influence the environment, in order to secure the production of these goods, narco cartels have invested in cattle farming and logging that tend to be located in remote protected areas (Benessaiah and Sayles, 2014). The illegality of these activities makes them more harmful since it might reinforce the overharvesting of resources. The current drug interdiction efforts from the US government in collaboration with the Mexican government have pushed drug cartels to search more remote areas for land work, consequently relocating to fragile biodiverse environments. However, these relocations involved multiple actors with different levels of influence. From the private sector, local municipalities, state government, and federal government, these illicit projects have different benefactors that in one way or another have allowed through the system for money laundering companies to exist with such prevalence in Mexico.


Remote forest areas of a great extension where socio-economic development is low are the ideal locations for drug traffickers to develop their activities (Sesnie, S. E. et al, 2016). Indigenous communities are some of the most affected groups by being forced to give up their land in the middle of a biosphere reserve. These acts of impunity generate migratory cycles which are divided into eradication, relocation, and relocation. Due to the violent nature of the drug trade, it is difficult to estimate exact numbers to the impact it has on the environment.

Another industry heavily affected by the drug trade is the fishing industry. In Mexico, fishermen that are not involved in drug trafficking present a clear disadvantage towards the fisherman that are involved in these illicit activities, who most of the time have better fishing gear. Fishermen feel the pressure to generate alternative sources of income, thus entering a vicious cycle (McSweeney et al, 2014). Furthermore, another phenomenon that rarely makes it to the media headlines is the forced displacement generated by the war on drugs (Cantor, 2014). Around 300,000 people have been forced due to the violence in Mexico as stated by the organization Coalición Pro Defensa del Migrante A.C. The main reason behind these forced displacements is the need of drug cartels to appropriate more land. Moreover, in 25% of the mass forced displacement events recorded, the majority of these people are indigenous women (CMDPDH, 2016).


Accumulation by dispossession

Departing from Marxist thinking in political ecology, primitive accumulation which considers the taking of land, and next to the expelling of local populations of an area. Thus, accumulation by dispossession could be the term to describe the current land-use dynamics in Mexico’s drug trade (Benjaminsen, 2015). As mentioned by researcher David Harvey, accumulation by dispossession applies force and theft to take away what it is of value in its constant quest for profit (Harvey, 2004). Remote forest areas of a great extension where socio-economic development is low are the ideal locations for drug traffickers to develop their activities. Vulnerable communities and the association with big land-use changes persist (Sesnie, S. E. et al, 2016). Accumulation by dispossession has been possible in Mexico through the involvement of three key actors: a corrupt government, international NGOs with conflicts of interest, and neoliberal reforms. The increased militarization of cartels has drastically changed the way they interact in such territories. A bloody mindset based on extreme spectacles and intimidation, Sayak Valencia calls these spectacles as part of gore capitalism, a concept based on violence as a product for the hyper-consumerist neoliberal capitalism and how bodies have become commodities (Valencia, 2018).


Masculinities and structures of power. The creation of uneven vulnerabilities.

Understanding the economic structures of the drug trade is not sufficient, but one has to consider the power dynamics in relation to governance, private sectors and the different range of actors from different industries (Svarstad, 2018). Gender plays an important role in understanding capitalistic practices and therefore also in the praxis of drug cartels. Sayak Valencia in her book Gore Capitalism, states that gender constructions in Mexico are tightly linked to the construction of the state, the connections between government entities and the so-called criminal class need to be considered along with the idea of the national. This blurriness or flexibility between power structures also enforces the system where the underprivileged may enforce power and authority in order to continue performing the violence.

The way interactions function in drug cartels is with violence at the core and as the key resource for socialization, and as a pass to legitimacy through the shared goal of access to power by economic wealth (Valencia, 2018).  Structural conditions of inequality drive the masculinities shaped in Mexico; men in Mexico have been failed by the global and local structures whose role is to supposedly guarantee their human rights. Additionally, the interactions by men and women within structures of inequality are not passive ones, these interactions happen through the active constructions of gender identity within this context of violence (Gamlin et al., 2017). In Mexico, it has been reported that as violent events arise, so does gendered violence, especially against women (CNDH, 2017).


A system of extraction - Degradation and Marginalization

Our current capitalist system is one extraction fueled by hyper-consumerism, and it is known that extractivism has had serious negative impacts on the relationships between space and power in the Latin American region (Bebbington, 2015). Drug cartels use colonial practices, for the exchange of land, resources such as gasoline or for the bribery of local business. A common practice is the “pago de piso” which basically is the monthly rent payment to drug traffickers in exchange for safety and not being threatened. However, these kinds of trades and exchanges are not new in our history as human beings. These have been used as powerful strategies to make more vulnerable certain groups of people that are not local (McSweeney et al., 2017).


Accumulation by dispossession

This concept is one that brings to the surface the inequalities that are present every day in the global south, however, this one becomes fully exponentialized when actions of accumulation and dispossession are performed by criminal groups, such as drug cartels. Indigenous groups went from primitive accumulation to regimes of dispossession, therefore living in a marginalized scenario no matter the changes in politics. Although this concept is driven by profit, I would debate how could this be tested in all practices that centralized wealth in many different ways, from human to non-human actors and new finance technologies. Hyperconsumerism is a steady constant characteristic involved in these illicit activities, it would be interesting to explore further the materialities of the drug trade and the meanings these resources have for different actors.

Masculinities and structures of power. The creation of uneven vulnerabilities

The complicity behind drug networks reflects also the complicity that is present in all men-only groups. Gender is a central point of this paper since from my personal experience growing up in the north of Mexico; it was evident how gender and the roles we assign to them defined the dynamics of the city and additionally there is data that has backed up this notion at the national level. Although violence is a means to financial wealth and power, men find complicity in these criminal groups. However the role of networks also plays a huge role, would it be that these networks are highly tensed where fear is a common denominator that determines spaces, delimitations, and course of action.

A system of extraction - Degradation and Marginalization

Although the term degradation might have several negative critiques recently because of the possibility to link it to more marginalization policies, it is still important to highlight how colonial practices persist as a method for civil oppression through fear and they just adapt to the needs of the oppressor. Indigenous communities are the group left alone with no protection from the government and left alone to deal with drug lords for the negotiation of land.

Moving forward, I would suggest exploring from a local to regional level political ecologies between Mexico and Centro America in the context of the drug trade. There are many connections between these regions, especially natural reserve locations that are connected but also in terms of how conjoint illegal activities have an impact on their shared environment.

I also suggest that as new insights keep on emerging, it would be interesting to explore this setting from a queer theory perspective since this might allow removing the binary structures that are present everywhere in Mexican culture and have a more rich and diverse outcome from the research.






References


Benessaiah, K., & Sayles, J. (2014). Drug Trafficking's Effects on Coastal Ecosystems. Science, 343(6178), 1431-1431.


Benjaminsen, T. A. (2015). Political ecologies of environmental degradation and marginalization.


Cantor, D. J. (2014). The new wave: forced displacement caused by organized crime in Central America and Mexico. Refugee Survey Quarterly, 33(3), 34-68.


CMDPDH (2016) . Costos de la impunidad y el desplazamiento forzado. Retrieve from https://cmdpdh.org/2017/10/cndh-reconoce-por-primera-vez-derecho-a-no-sufrir-desplazamiento-interno-forzado-en-mexico/


CNDH (2017). Desplazamiento interno por violencia en México. Retrieve from http://www.corteidh.or.cr/tablas/r37820.pdf


Gamlin, J. B., & Hawkes, S. J. (2017). Masculinities on the continuum of structural violence: the case of Mexico’s homicide epidemic. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 25(1), 50-71.


Harvey, D. (2004). The ‘new’ imperialism: accumulation by dispossession. Socialist Register. 40, 63-87.


McSweeney, K., Nielsen, E. A., Taylor, M. J., Wrathall, D. J., Pearson, Z., Wang, O., & Plumb, S. T. (2014). Drug policy as conservation policy: narco-deforestation. Science, 343(6170), 489-490.


McSweeney, K., Richani, N., Pearson, Z., Devine, J., & Wrathall, D. J. (2017). Why do narcos invest in rural land?. Journal of Latin American Geography, 16(2), 3-29.


Mercille, J. (2011). Violent narco-cartels or US hegemony? The political economy of the ‘war on drugs’ in Mexico. Third World Quarterly, 32(9), 1637-1653.


Robbins, P. (2011). Political ecology: A critical introduction (Vol. 16). John Wiley & Sons.


Sesnie, S. E., Tellman, B., Wrathall, D., McSweeney, K., Nielsen, E., Benessaiah, K., ... & Rey, L. (2017). A spatio-temporal analysis of forest loss related to cocaine trafficking in Central America. Environmental Research Letters, 12(5), 054015.


Valencia, S. (2018). Gore Capitalism (Vol. 24). MIT Press.