When I Wear My Alligator Boots
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A01=Shaylih Muehlmann
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
anthropologists
anthropology
Author_Shaylih Muehlmann
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borderlands
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JHMC
Category=JKVG
COP=United States
criminology
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
dispossessed
drug addiction
drug cartels
drug mules
drug trade
drug trafficking
drug violence
drug workers
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
folklore
gang violence
imprisonment
jesus malverde
Language_English
men and women
mexican culture
mexico
migrant studies
militarization
modern culture
money
narco culture
narcotrafficking
nortena music
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
public anthropology
rural poor
rural villages
sociology
softlaunch
united states
us borders
war on drugs
Product details
- ISBN 9780520276789
- Weight: 272g
- Dimensions: 140 x 210mm
- Publication Date: 09 Nov 2013
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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When I Wear My Alligator Boots examines how the lives of dispossessed men and women are affected by the rise of narcotrafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border. In particular, the book explores a crucial tension at the heart of the "war on drugs": despite the violence and suffering brought on by drug cartels, for the rural poor in Mexico's north, narcotrafficking offers one of the few paths to upward mobility and is a powerful source of cultural meanings and local prestige. In the borderlands, traces of the drug trade are everywhere: from gang violence in cities to drug addiction in rural villages, from the vibrant folklore popularized in the narco-corridos of Nortena music to the icon of Jesus Malverde, the "patron saint" of narcos, tucked beneath the shirts of local people. In When I Wear My Alligator Boots, the author explores the everyday reality of the drug trade by living alongside its low-level workers, who live at the edges of the violence generated by the militarization of the war on drugs.
Rather than telling the story of the powerful cartel leaders, the book focuses on the women who occasionally make their sandwiches, the low-level businessmen who launder their money, the addicts who consume their products, the mules who carry their money and drugs across borders, and the men and women who serve out prison sentences when their bosses' operations go awry.
Shaylih Muehlmann is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Canada Research Chair in Language, Culture and the Environment at the University of British Columbia.
