Community Defense and Criminal Order in Michoacán: Contention in the Grey Area. (November 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fuentes Díaz, Antonio
• Other Names: Leddy George guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Latin American perspectives. Volume 45:Number 6(2018:Nov.)
• Page Start: 127
• Page End: 139
• Publication Date: 2018-11
• Subjects: Self-defense -- Organized crime -- Drug trafficking -- Security -- Violence -- Mexico; Latin America -- Economic policy -- Periodicals; Latin America -- Politics and government -- Periodicals; Latin America -- Economic conditions -- Periodicals; Latin America -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; 320.98
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X17719066
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0094-582X

Abstract

The self-defense groups of La Ruana and Tepalcatepec and other communities in the Tierra Caliente of Michoacán, Mexico, emerged to oppose both the extortion and violence of the local parastatal order of organized crime and the central state's demands for their disarming and dissolution. They represented a form of governmentality at the local level in which various nonstate actors performed the functions of government, control, and security in the grey area between legality and illegality. Los grupos de autodefensa de La Ruana y Tepalcatepec, así como de otras comunidades de tierra caliente en Michoacán, México, surgieron para contrarrestar las extorsiones y violencia del orden local paraestatal formado por el crimen organizado, así como las exigencias de desarme y disolución del estado central. Representaban una forma de gobernabilidad a nivel local, con varios actores no estatales haciendo las veces de gobierno, control y seguridad en un área gris entre lo legal y lo ilegal.