This paper intends to understand better the cultural and psychological response to worsening drug issues that underpin the rise of Pat Jasan as a mass social movement.
The substitution program on trial: progress and setbacks of the peace agreement in the policy against illicit crops in Colombia
This paper examines the design and implementation of the Colombian national illicit crop substitution program that was included in the Peace Agreement.
Dynamic borderlands–The challenge of adapting to hardening borders in Nangarhar and Nimroz
This paper looks at local effects of recent changes in how the international boders of two Afghan provinces, Nangarhar and Nimroz, are governed.
‘Whatever we have, we owe it to coca’. Insights on armed conflict and the coca economy from Argelia, Colombia
This paper argues that rural development and engagement with local governance mechanisms in drug-producing regions are paramount to address effectively the problem of illicit crops.
The Pat Jasan drug eradication social movement in Northern Myanmar, part one: Origins & reactions
An introduction to the origins and emergence of Pat Jasan, a social movement that emerged among the Kachin population of Myanmar.
Tough trade-offs Coca crops and agrarian alternatives in Colombia
This article compares coca with mainstream agrarian economies in Colombia. On the one hand, due to coca producers can escape from the ‘reproductive squeeze’ and extreme pattern of land concentration that affect other peasants; on the other, coca becomes an unending source of risk and distress. This contradiction puts peasants in front of very tough trade-offs, which in turn demand a careful reconsideration of what ‘alternative’ development can mean in the Colombian context.
From drugs to peace? Resetting the conversation
The militarised approach to drugs supply continues to predominate, despite a new emphasis on drugs, peace and development. This article argues that to reset the conversation towards violence reduction and new livelihoods, states must involve the borderlanders themselves, protecting and enabling them to build a new road to peace.
Cocalero women and peace policies in Colombia
This article looks at the impact of the coca economy (considered a war economy) on women and argues that , policies pursuing a transition from war to peace, such as the ones that emerged from the 2016 Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla, must incorporate a gender perspective in order to acknowledge the social progress that women can achieve in war scenarios.
Critical policy frontiers: The drugs-development-peacebuilding trilemma
This article develops the notion of a policy trilemma, showing the tensions and trade-offs between drugs, development and peacebuilding policy fields.
Ontological journeys: The lifeworld of opium across the Afghan-Iranian border in/out of the pharmacy
How can we conceive alternative policy models that embrace the empirical potentialities emerging from the lifeworld of drugs? The article reflects on this question, concluding that to reassess and to reinvent current policies on drugs, we need to think with a political ontology. Incidentally, the article also responds to the critique dismissing ontological inquiries as obstructing – or, at best, not informing – alternative drug policies.
Measuring progress towards SDG16 in Afghanistan: Ignoring the elephant in the room
Viewpoint published in the International Journal of Drug Policy. By Orzala Nemat and Adam Pain
Ecologies of drug war and more-than-human health: The case of a chemical at war with a plant
Drawing on an ecological approach, this article traces how the political-economy of drug wars are locally materialised in relation to health. In particular, it traces the different ways the chemical glyphosate used in aerial fumigation of coca crops in Colombia is materialised.
Beyond the narco frontier: rethinking an imaginary of the margins
The ‘narco-frontier’ is frequently invoked in policy and popular narratives about drugs and armed conflict as unruly and marginal. This paper asks why has this been the case. What ideological work does the imaginary perform and for whom? And what are the implications of an alternative imaginary of the margins?
Unsettling the peace? The role of illicit economies in peace processes
This article surveys the main strategies to address war economies in peace processes for countries emerging from war and discusses trade-offs associated with each.
Criminal entrepreneurs as pioneers, intermediaries, and arbitrageurs in borderland economies
This paper assesses the life stories of drug lords, the Castaño brothers of Colombia and Roberto Suárez Gomez of Bolivia.
Precarity, poverty and poppy: Encountering development in the uplands of Shan State, Myanmar
The paper argues that if the current agenda to developmentalise drug policy is to make a meaningful contribution to the lives of the rural poor in drug-producing regions in Myanmar and beyond, it must confront the fact that for many households the decision to cultivate opium has been a response to the very processes of market-led rural development that policymakers claim will alleviate poverty.
Rebels-turned-narcos? The FARC-EP’s political involvement in Colombia’s cocaine economy
This paper challenges the ‘rebels-turned-narcos’ premise by showing why involvement in the illicit drug economy, on its own, is insufficient evidence to posit the depoliticisation of an insurgent group.
The paradox of illicit economies: survival, resilience, and the limits of development and drug policy orthodoxy
This paper maps out an approach to examine the resilience that has emerged amidst violence and uncertainty in illicit-crop-producing territories.
Conflictos cocaleros en Colombia
Cuatro artículos publicados en la revista Análisis Político sobre conflictos cocaleros en Colombia.