Drug trafficking in the Tarahumara region, northern Mexico: An analysis of racism and dispossession

Drug trafficking in Mexico has been widely debated from economic and legal perspectives. Some studies conclude that corruption is to blame (Garay Salamanca et al., 2012; Grayson, 2010; Valdés, 2013); yet others argue that criminal organizations are producing terror-based governance patterns grounded in their ambivalent relationship with the State (Campbell, 2010; Gibler, 2017; Reyes, 2015; Paley, 2014, 2015). However, what role do mestizaje and gender play in shaping the dynamics of this phenomenon? This article is the product of the shared experiences between a member of the Rarámuri people and an indigenous rights lawyer involved in collective processes for the defense of indigenous territory in the Tarahumara Sierra. It explores the relationship between drug trafficking and the historical structures of racial-gender domination in the Mexican state. We argue that drug traffickers in the Tarahumara region, exercise a kind of sovereignty, that enacts racialization, colonialism, and contrasting power relations. Therefore, drug traffickers’ claims to sovereignty fall in line with the ideology of mestizaje, which is supported by their invocation of coloniality rather their ability to mimic the state. We also argue that, in the case of Rarámuri youth, western schooling and racial-masculine hegemonical models are driving forces in the decision to join the drug trafficking armed forces, and then to the erosion of Rarámuri tradition and autonomy. As such this article sheds new light on the little recognized relationship between colonialism, race, power, gender and drug trafficking in Mexico.