Mirella van Dun Cocaleros Violence, Drugs and Social Mobilization in the Post-Conflict Upper Huallaga Valley, Peru

16,5 x 24 cm. 399 pag. € 28,50 ISBN 978 90 3610 120 2 NUR 740 Nederlandse samenvatting 2000

During Peru's internal armed conflict (1980s - 1990s) the Upper Huallaga Valley became one of the most violent theaters of conflict, with political violence and violent crime becoming causally related phenomena. In the Upper Huallaga different sorts of armed actors (whether their motivations were political, ideological or financial) came into contact with one another, as boundaries between political and non-political violence in these regions became more and more porous, and at times even disappeared entirely. Until the late 1990s the Upper Huallaga Valley remained the world's largest coca-producing region, a status it only lost to Colombia's coca cultivating regions. However, when the 'war on drugs' in Colombia intensified in 1998, prices for coca began to rise again. As a result, Peru consolidated its position as the world's second largest producer of cocaine. Amazingly, in the Upper Huallaga's narcopueblos (drug villages) coca cultivation provided the groundwork of one of Peru's important post-conflict social movements. In this book Mirella van Dun offers a detailed account on how a partial power vacuum in post-conflict settings, along with the existence of a powerful illegal economy, the presence of different armed actors, and the obstacles faced by social mobilizations and civil protest by the cocaleros (i.e., coca farmers), contribute to a regional continuation of violence. The ethnographic approach allows van Dun to explore how regional dynamics and complexities within internal armed conflicts can lead to partial conflict settlements that can severely disrupt local peace if managed ineffectively by the state. The use of in-depth accounts of the local narratives about conflict and violence, the villagers' responses to the ongoing violence, and the relations between the local post-conflict processes and the parallel national processes all constitute elements that are indispensable for a deeper understanding of violence in postconflict societies where an illegal industry dominates the local economy. Mirella Elisabeth Henriette van Dun was born on October 18, 1976 in Geldrop, the Netherlands. after her secondary school education she studied Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University and received her MA degree in 2000. from 2003 to 2008 she did Ph.D. research at Utrecht University and carried out fieldwork in Peru on five occasions between 2003 and 2007. Bestel/Order