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The municipality of Badiraguato, Sinaloa, is located in a historically marginalized region of Mexico. Although the myth and attraction embodied by some drug traffickers attracts international attention, investigating how the inhabitants of that region live is essential to understand the insertion of poppy cultivation in the world market. This is what the anthropologist Adèle Blazquez achieves, who publishes ‘El Alba has risen over a dead man. Armed violence and poppy cultivation in Mexico’.
The book ‘L’aube s’est levée sur un mort, violence armée et culture du pavot au Mexique,’ (The Dawn has risen over a dead man. Armed violence and poppy cultivation in Mexico), edited by the CNRS by doctor in anthropology Adèle Blazquez, is key to understanding the economic, political, and social machinery in which the population of the mountains lives in Badiraguato, Sinaloa, who depends on poppy cultivation. Between 2013 and 2015, the author lived in this municipality in the framework of the research that is reflected in her book.
“Badiraguato is a municipality with difficulties of access, with many economic difficulties, in which you can see that paradox of being both very marginalized and at the same time being at the center of this global drug economy. People in general live in precariousness, but they still cultivate a plot with poppies,” he told RFI and France 24.
In order to be able to live and move around, “it is crucial to have information about what is happening around us”, in a very discreet and codified way. “When a death dawns, it is necessary to know if that death is going to be one of what they call an isolated case, or if that death could be an indication of a high season of violence. So it is very important to have information, but at the same time to look for information can be very suspicious'”, stresses the PhD in anthropology.
In cases of violence, the official will often say that it is the responsibility of “organized crime.” The authority thus evacuates social problems and even more so the complexity of the system that involves all the inhabitants near or far by necessity or fatality.
“The central point of the economic organization of the place, as I have been able to study it, is that everything lies in the enclave, in being isolated, moving can be a privilege, but also a high risk; it is easy if people know each other , or difficult if you cross paths with one of the opposing gangs,” he adds.
The one who can move or the one who can move merchandise is located at the top of the pyramid. But even at the top, the military presence questions the entire social organization of Badiraguato. Everyone fears military repression since, in their presence, women do not go out and men tend to move away or hide. In this context, even the most nondescript, such as who takes or picks up the children from school or who does the shopping, is reconsidered. Intimidation, repression, and extortion are permanent, especially during the rubber harvest period. The income of a community is at stake.
‘L’Aube s’est levée sur un mort, violence armée et culture du pavot au Mexique’ It will soon circulate in its Spanish version.
