Between Horror and Obscene Beauty: The Passion of Photojournalism during the War on Drugs in Mexico (2006–2012)

This article examines a group of photographs bearing a strong violent content that were published in print and digital media as part of the coverage of the ‘war against drugs’ in Mexico: an armed conflict initiated by the central government in December 2006. This military action was the first step in a process of militarization affecting several states, in which an attempt was made to dismantle territorial pacts between cartels, to control the illegal traffic in drugs and, supposedly, to put an end to the use and production of drugs among the population. This war gave rise to one of the bloodiest episodes of contemporary Mexico in which drug cartels reproduced and invented new methods of torture that were used not only upon the gunmen of rival cartels but also on a significant number of civilians. In the coverage of these events, not all photojournalists reacted to this upsurge in violence in a ‘sensationalist’ manner; several set out to produce images from unusual points of view. In particular, I shall analyze how certain images represent violence in a tense relationship with artistic iconography, upsetting parameters of horror and beauty in the public sphere.     

Trafficking in Law: Cause Lawyer,Bureaucratic State and Rights of Human Trafficking Victims in Thailand

Abstract

In this case study of a young, Thai “cause lawyer”, advocacy for human rights is considered in context. The most important elements of that context are the path of development of Thai political and legal institutions, globalisation of law, and the networks of relationships that penetrate the state. The case study shows that human rights advocacy by NGO lawyers can adapt creatively to unpromising conditions under which courts provide little access or oversight. At the same time, the case study raises profound questions about the ultimate independence of cause lawyers when the state must be made a partner in order to establish the authority of law needed to make human rights advocacy possible. The ambiguity of the lawyer’s position is apparent from the relative ineffectiveness of her interventions and her growing moral authority on behalf of best practices under law. Her position suggests the limitations on law imposed by the underpinnings of the Thai state itself.     

Trafficking borders

This article offers an empirically informed conceptualisation of trafficking borders as spaces of restriction and negotiation, contingently produced, encountered, and escaped along the mobility routes of the targets of trafficking discourse. The concept of trafficking borders advances critical literature that considers anti-trafficking measures a vehicle of state-authorised bordering practices by demonstrating social and political spaces where the trafficking discourse coalesces several discourses, institutions, and practices as borders. The article draws on participatory action research conducted in Nepal to demonstrate the presence of borders in spaces such as households, communities, government offices, Indo-Nepal state borders, emigration detention and deportation centres, and airports. These spaces contribute to the critical understanding of locations where anti-trafficking measures curtail the rights, mobility, and choices of prospective migrant workers. Prioritising research participants’ experiences of encounters with trafficking borders, the article underscores that borders are the central experience of migrant workers which they must escape to actualise their labour migration projects. The conceptualisation further attempts to position the emigration regime as an important site of theorisation and activism and demands a thorough consideration of the diverse struggles of the labour migrants before they arrive at their labour relations in the immigration regime.     

From Head‐hunter to Organ‐thief: Verisimilitude,Doubt, and Plausible Worlds in Indonesia and Beyond

In the last few years, occult head‐hunters – elusive figures that have haunted communities and the public imagination in Indonesia since at least colonial times – appear to have adopted a novel and troubling tactic. Instead of decapitating their victims and using the heads in construction rituals as they are said to have conventionally done, head‐hunters are now allegedly harvesting their victims’ organs to sell them on the global market of body parts. Based on a comparison of ethnographic material from North Maluku, a province in the eastern part of Indonesia, and news reports in regional and national papers, I trace how accounts about headhunting have morphed with narratives about organ theft. I argue that this plasticity is not a merely a change in symbolic ideas of the occult that reflects changing political and economic realities. Rather, I propose that their turn to organ theft enrols head‐hunters in a contemporary and global ‘travelling package’ that includes and entangles organ trafficking practices, media accounts, political imaginaries, and social anxieties within the same field of reality and possibility, a field of verisimilitude in which fiction and fact, rumour and reality, are fundamentally blurred. The article proposes a ‘more‐than‐representational’ approach to the organ‐stealing head‐hunter that sees him not just as a representation of particular political and historical circumstances but as a co‐producer of these circumstances, of particular political worlds and their attendant scales of anxiety. This approach, I argue, challenges the epistemological distinction between symbolic representation and political reality that informed (but also incommoded) the analyses of headhunting rumours in the 1980s and 1990s – and that continues to inform anthropological analyses of ‘the occult’ more generally.     

Trafficking in US Agriculture

Based on a qualitative methodology that includes in‐depth interviews with 90 Mexican migrant smugglers and 45 Central American farmworkers, this article analyzes the three separate elements of trafficking in US agriculture, namely acts, means, and purposes. We conclude that some US employers participate in human trafficking by financing or helping to recruit and transport Mexican and Central American migrants to the US by means of “abuse of a position of vulnerability” for the purposes of involuntary servitude, debt bondage, and sex exploitation.     

How do Migrant Workers Respond to Labour Abuses in “Local Sweatshops”?

This article aims to provide empirical evidence on understanding how migrant workers’ responses to labour exploitation in low‐wage economies are articulated. Inspired by the low levels of conflict among workers in small urban sweatshops in Italy and Argentina, we ask ourselves what contextual and subjective factors prevent workers from organising collectively. Here we argue that in order to understand the nature of their responses, it is necessary to consider not only the organisation of the labour process, but also the class divisions within migrant communities. We also bring in briefly the role of the state in (mis)regulating migrant labour exploitation. We conclude by showing that workers’ responses are highly individualised and that community leaders with economic interests in sweatshop economies may play a role in securing their continuation by channelling the workers’ responses towards the defence of the “ethnic economy”.     

Masculinity under the knife: Filipino men,trafficking and the black organ market in Manila,the Philippines

The Philippines has recently achieved notoriety as one of the top five source countries for commercially provided organs, particularly kidneys, globally. The vast majority of commercial organ providers are economically marginal men, thus throwing into question conventional wisdom regarding the gendered nature of human trafficking in which most trafficked persons are presumed to be female. This article examined the motives of men who sell kidneys in Manila's black organ market and their ongoing negotiations when their aspirations are not fulfilled. I suggest that family considerations figure prominently amongst many of the men, who attempt to use the money from the sale of a kidney as a livelihood or family security strategy. Narratives of economically marginal men in the Philippines about the commercial value of their body parts are situated in discourses of traditional Philippines ideas about masculinity, particularly concerning the male breadwinner and also about heroism. Thus, although an emotionally and relationally complex decision, selling a kidney nonetheless allows these men to attempt to reclaim their masculine roles, but often with contradictory outcomes.     

Social construction and the diffusion of anti-trafficking laws in the U.S.

Human trafficking is a compelling and persistent problem that has attracted a great amount of attention among political leaders, government institutions, NGOs, and nonprofit organizations. While there is consensus that trafficking necessitates a multipronged policy response commonly known as the “3Ps” (prosecution, protection, and prevention), anti-trafficking policies diffused across U.S. states in a piecemeal fashion. In this paper, we explore the fragmented diffusion of the different types of anti-trafficking laws. Drawing from social constructivist approaches, we posit that the differential diffusion rates depend on the social construction of the target population and policy intention of the law. Using event history analysis, we examine the diffusion of 14 types of human trafficking laws throughout the U.S. during 2003–2013. We find strong support for our hypotheses and show substantial differences in the rates at which prosecution, protection, and prevention-related laws diffuse.     

Trafficking in women? Or multicultural family? The contextual difference of commodification of intimacy

This article attempts to link commercially arranged cross-border marriages to the discussion of the commodification of intimacy and to explore how a transnational phenomenon is contextualized in national politics. The question of commodification – what can or cannot be assigned economic value – has been a contentious area of intersection between economics and ethics, and intimacy has often been at the heart of the recent debate on commodification. Yet, commercially arranged cross-border marriages are perceived differently in Vietnam, a country that sends brides, and in Korea, a country that receives brides. In Vietnam, cross-border marriage has been portrayed negatively and is often associated with trafficking in women. Although a similar discourse exists in Korea, the official discourse on cross-border marriage has focused on supporting multicultural families. The difference in discourse with respect to the same phenomenon suggests that the tension around commodification is not necessarily shaped uniformly across the national border. In this article, I juxtapose the contrasted discourses and policies on commercially arranged cross-border marriages in both countries and discuss the contexts that may have contributed to the difference in discourse. By doing this, I show that the global trend of commodification of intimacy and the cultural meaning of this phenomenon cannot be divorced from national politics.     

On Narco‐coyotaje: Illicit Regimes and Their Impacts on the US–Mexico Border

Many have debated whether or not human smugglers, known as coyotes, are involved with drug trafficking organizations. Scholars have largely rejected so‐called “narcocoyotaje”, however; we hope to problematize this narrative by adding a new theoretical layer to the discussion. Namely, we explore the ways in which different criminal activities produce hierarchies and control illicit activities within the clandestine geography of the US–Mexico border. These “illicit regimes” operate against the State, creating a hierarchy that dominates other illicit activities in order to maximize profit, avoid detection and consolidate power. While other studies have explored the relationships between the State and illicit practices this article takes the relationship between two illicit industries as its object of study. Doing so will help us move past the simply binary question about whether or not coyotes are involved with drug cartels, and allows us to understand what is being produced by this relationship, and its consequences for everyone involved.