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Abstract
The income generated by the drug economy can often be substantial for the different parties involved, even at the lowest rung of this illicit trade. Yet the drugs trade is also a notoriously volatile activity, meaning that drug-related prosperity is highly prone to boom-and-bust cycles. Drawing on ongoing longitudinal ethnographic research in urban Nicaragua, this article explores the consequences of the cyclical nature of the drugs trade, tracing its unequal patterns of capital accumulation, as well as what happened to those who benefited from the drug economy when it became more exclusive and then subsequently moved on elsewhere.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Desmond Arias, Thomas Grisaffi, Javier Auyero, Maziyar Ghiabi, and two anonymous referees for constructive comments on early drafts of this article.
Notes
1. Bourgois, In Search of Respect; Contreras, Stickup Kids; Levitt and Dubner, Freakonomics; Levitt and Venkatesh, “Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang”; Padilla, Gang as an American Enterprise; and Venkatesh and Levitt, “Are We a Family or a Business?”
2. Malkin, “Narcotrafficking, Migration, and Modernity”; Rodgers, “Critique of Urban Violence”; and Rodgers, “Why Do Drug Dealers.”
3. Arias, Drugs and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro; McDonald, “Narcoeconomy and Small-Town Mexico”; and Rodgers, “Managua.”
4. Brownstein et al. “Relationship of Drugs, Drug Trafficking”; Reuter, “Systemic Violence in Drug Markets”; Stanton and Galbraith, “Drug Trafficking among African-American Early Adolescents.”
5. This name is a pseudonym, as are the names of all the individuals mentioned in this article.
6. Due to its proximity to the Colombian island of San Andrés, Nicaragua is geographically a natural trans-shipment point for drugs moving from South to North America. It was under-exploited as such until the turn of the century because of the patchy nature of its transport infrastructure, including in particular the lack of connection between the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of the country. In late 1998, however, Nicaragua was devastated by Hurricane Mitch, suffering major infrastructure damage and resource drainage. This negatively affected the (already limited) capabilities of local law enforcement institutions, thereby facilitating the importation of drugs; and at the same time, post-Mitch reconstruction efforts focused largely on rebuilding transport links, including building a road between the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, and generally improving the whole network, which had a knock-on effect of increasing the volume of traffic and making moving drug shipments easier. A sizeable proportion of the Western hemisphere’s South–North drugs trade has consequently been transiting through Nicaragua since the early 2000s.
7. Rodgers, “Living in the Shadow of Death”; and Rodgers, “When Vigilantes Turn Bad.”
8. Rodgers, “Living in the Shadow of Death”; Rodgers, “When Vigilantes Turn Bad”; Rodgers, “Managua”; Rodgers, “Critique of Urban Violence”; and Rodgers, “Why Do Drug Dealers.”
9. Baird, “Duros and Gangland Girlfriends”; Bourgois, In Search of Respect; and Contreras, Stickup Kids.
10. Rodgers, “When Vigilantes Turn Bad.”
11. The latter subsequently consolidated monopoly control over the country’s narcotics trade, to the extent that we can plausibly talk of Nicaragua now being a ‘narco-state’ – see Rodgers and Rocha, “Myth of Nicaraguan Exceptionalism.”
12. Kessler, Sociología del Delito Amateur.
13. Rodgers, “Managua”; and Rodgers, “Symptom called Managua.”
14. Venkatesh, Off the Books.
15. Contreras, Stickup Kids.
16. The deaths occurred primarily because of the reconfiguration of the drug economy in barrio Luis Fanor Hernández rather than its demise, and dying can thus be seen as a cause rather than an outcome of ceasing to deal drugs. The same was also true of imprisonment, as the example of Mungo highlights well. He was a former mulero from the early 2000s who due to his personal links to el Indio Viejo was exceptionally allowed to take up drug dealing in 2009 when the cartelito refocused on trafficking, despite not being a member of the cartelito. Mungo was, however, arrested in 2010, and his prison experiences led him to put an end to his drug dealing, albeit for reasons that had little to do with drug dealing per se and more the traumatic experience of being incarcerated (see Rodgers, “I’ve Seen Things”).
17. At the same time, el Negro’s sense of humiliation clearly also stemmed from the fact that – due to his close personal friendship with el Indio Viejo – he had been one of the few original neighbourhood púsheres to integrate the cartelito once it became dominant, and then became one of two ‘authorised’ local dealers in barrio Luis Fanor Hernández once the cartelito had turned to trafficking rather than dealing, and he was easily the longest-standing of all the local drug dealers there have been in the neighbourhood.
18. Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity.
19. Rodgers, “Each to Their Own.”
20. Lewis, La Vida.
21. Contreras, Stickup Kids, 194.
22. Ibid.
23. The following is an abridged extract from an exchange presented in fuller form in Rodgers, “Critique of Urban Violence,” 99–102.
24. Approximately US$10 at the time.
25. Approximately US$250 at the time.
26. Rodgers, “Critique of Urban Violence.”
27. Thoumi, Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society.
28. Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity.
29. Rodgers, “Slum Wars of the 21st Century.”
30. Rodgers, “After the Gang.”