With Javier Auyero, this project examines relationships of collusion between the state and drug gangs in Argentina. We are currently analyzing over 1,000 pages of court cases and, in particular, wiretapped phone conversations to unpack the content of this collusion. We are especially interested in how these relationships of collusion impacts the behavior of dealers, cops, and the residents caught in the crosshairs.
Our book, The Ambivalent State: Police-Criminal Collusion at the Urban Margins, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. The Spanish edition, Entre Narcos y Policías. Las Relaciones Clandestinas entre el Estado y el Delito, y su Impacto Violento en la Vida de las Personas, was published with Siglo Ventiuno in 2021. We have also published a series of articles based on this project, including one in the 2018 special issue in Sociological Forum entitled “Whose Lives Matter?” and another in a special collection on “Societal Responses to Criminal Governance in Latin America” in the Latin American Research Review.