Drug Cartels Do Not Exist

Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture

Oswaldo Zavala (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

238 Seiten

2022
Vanderbilt University Press (Verlag)
978-0-8265-0466-1 (ISBN)

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Through political and cultural analysis of representations of the so-called war on drugs, Oswaldo Zavala makes the case that the very terms we use to describe drug traffickers are a constructed subterfuge for the real narcos: politicians, corporations, and the military. Though Donald Trump's incendiary comments and monstrous policies on the border reveal the character of a deeply depraved leader, state violence on both sides of the border is nothing new. Immigration has endured as a prevailing news topic, but it is a fixture of modern society in the neoliberal era; the future will be one of exile brought on by state violence and the plundering of our natural resources to sate capitalist greed.

Yet, the realities of violence in Mexico and along the border are obscured by the books, films, and TV series we consume. In truth, works like Sicario, The Queen of the South, and Narcos hide Mexico's political realities. Along with these examples, Zavala discusses Charles Bowden, 2666 by Roberto BolaÑo, and other important Latin American writers as examples of works that do capture the realities of the drug war.

Drug Cartels Do Not Exist will be useful for journalists, political scientists, philosophers, and writers of any kind who wish to break down the constructed barriers—physical and mental—created by those in power around the reality of the Mexican drug trade.

Oswaldo Zavala is a professor of contemporary Latin American literature and culture with a joint appointment at the College of Staten Island and at The Graduate Center, both institutions part of the City University of New York (CUNY) William Savinar is a writer, translator, and English teacher living in Mexico City.

INTRODUCTION: THE INVENTION OF A FORMIDABLE ENEMY

CHAPTER ONE: NARCO CULTURE DEPOLITICIZED
Corpses Without History: Narco Noir Novels and the Myth of the Cartel Kingdom
Neutralized Chronicles: The Journalistic Imaginary on Drug Trafficking
The Cartel, Narcos, Sicario: National Security Discourse in American Movies and Television

CHAPTER TWO: THE CARTELS DON’T EXIST (BUT STATE VIOLENCE DOES)
The Drug War and Its Raisons d’État: Sovereignty and Biopolitics in the Contemporary Mexican NarcoNarrative
The Recapture of "El Chapo" and the State's Media Conquest
A Latecomer to the End of the World: Trump, the US, the "Narco" and the Mexican Energy Reform

CHAPTER THREE: FOUR WRITERS SUBVERTING THE NARCONARRATIVE
Cesar López Cuadras and the Precarious Life of the Drug Trafficker
Daniel Sada and the Return to the Political
Roberto BolaÑo and the Narco's Face
Juan Villoro and the Country Too Faithful to Its Own Image

CHAPTER FOUR: DRUG TRAFFICKING, SOLDIERS, AND POLICE ON THE BORDER
Imaginary Lines of Power: Politics and Mythology in the Literature on Ciudad JuÁrez
JuliÁn Cardona and Charles Bowden, Heretics Preaching in Hell
Who Controls the Plaza? The City, the State, and Organized Crime

EPILOGUE: THE NEW "CARTEL WAR" IS NOT NEW, NOR A WAR, NOR BETWEEN CARTELS

Afterword for the English Edition
Acknowledgments

Erscheinungsdatum	07.05.2022
Reihe/Serie	Critical Mexican Studies
Verlagsort	Tennessee
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 228 mm
Gewicht	300 g
Themenwelt	Recht / Steuern ► Strafrecht ► Kriminologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	0-8265-0466-3 / 0826504663
ISBN-13	978-0-8265-0466-1 / 9780826504661
Zustand	Neuware