Cocaine, like other commodities, exists on a value chain that runs from fields around the Andes mountains where it is produced to consumers in major cities around the world.  At each stage in that value chain, cocaine and governments’ responses to it, affect how people and communities live and seek to survive.  The cocaine trade is governed by its own internal logic that diverges from dominant economic models but is often deeply implicated in local, normatively regulated, exchanges. This roundtable, which emerges from the recently published volume Cocaine (Duke University Press) includes scholars who have studied the production, shipment, and retail sale of cocaine.  The participants will discuss cocaine value chains and their implications for communities in different parts of the Americas. 

Participants:

Philippe Bourgois, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology and Social Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Los Angeles
Thomas Grisaffi, Ph.D., Associate Professor in Geography, University of Reading, UK; Visiting Professor, the University of St Gallen, Switzerland
Taniele Rui, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Campinas, Brazil

Moderator:

Enrique Desmond Arias, professor, Marxe Chair of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, Baruch College, City University of New York