Colombia

This paper examines the design and implementation of the Colombian national illicit crop substitution program that was included in the Peace Agreement.

This paper argues that rural development and engagement with local governance mechanisms in drug-producing regions are paramount to address effectively the problem of illicit crops.

This article compares coca with mainstream agrarian economies in Colombia. On the one hand, due to coca producers can escape from the ‘reproductive squeeze’ and extreme pattern of land concentration that affect other peasants; on the other, coca becomes an unending source of risk and distress. This contradiction puts peasants in front of very tough trade-offs, which in turn demand a careful reconsideration of what ‘alternative’ development can mean in the Colombian context.

This article looks at the impact of the coca economy (considered a war economy) on women and argues that , policies pursuing a transition from war to peace, such as the ones that emerged from the 2016 Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla, must incorporate a gender perspective in order to acknowledge the social progress that women can achieve in war scenarios.

Drawing on an ecological approach, this article traces how the political-economy of drug wars are locally materialised in relation to health. In particular, it traces the different ways the chemical glyphosate used in aerial fumigation of coca crops in Colombia is materialised.