“Challenging Drug War Orthodoxy in Bolivia: An Investigation of Coca-Based Livelihoods, the Legacy of International Drug Control Policy, and the Promises and Pitfalls of “Social Control” - Zoe Pearson (Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Geography)

Zoe Pearson (Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Geography)  

“Challenging Drug War Orthodoxy in Bolivia: An Investigation of Coca-Based Livelihoods, the Legacy of International Drug Control Policy, and the Promises and Pitfalls of “Social Control”  Knight House

 

Under coca union leader turned President Evo Morales, registered coca producers in Bolivia can now produce a limited amount of the culturally and medicinally important coca plant without fear of violent eradication. According to the United Nations, this new “social control” method of controlling coca leaf production has led to a marked decline in net land under coca cultivation in 2011, 2012, and 2013. And yet, Bolivia’s approach to what has long been the United States’ primary tactic of narcotics control in Andean South America, namely coca eradication, has gone mostly unrecognized and remains poorly understood elsewhere. My dissertation research investigates this approach in its broader geopolitical context, with an emphasis on how it affects the lives and livelihoods of coca growers and sellers who have long been impacted by international coca eradication efforts. In order to better understand the logics behind, failures of, and possibilities for drug control in the Americas, this project brings attention to Bolivia's new approach and more generally to some of the grounded and embodied dynamics of illegal and illicit substance control. In this workshop I will share some of my current dissertation writing, welcoming feedback and suggestions from the audience.