Foreign fieldwork always presents interesting and unique challenges; however, fieldwork that involves illegal activities on the part of the study group is “ethnography” like no other. The typical fieldwork tools such as tape recorders, cameras, statistical models, and formal questionnaires are often not an option. Instead, great caution and sensitivity must be maintained to protect the identity of informants, as well the researcher’s personal safety. Informants may be willing to talk about illegal activities, but in this study no one was willing to go on record or have their photographs taken with their illegal marijuana (Cannabis sativa) crop. As a result of these cautious methods, much of the information contained in this chapter is based on interviews with unnamed informants in unstructured interviews whom I came to know and trust mainly during the late 1990s while conducting fieldwork with the Mopan and Kekchí Maya in southern Belize on various cultural ecological topics. There was no intention to assist informants in illegal activities by hiding their identities, but similar to investigative journalism (which in many ways these chapters resemble), informants must have sufficient trust in the investigator in order to provide reliable information. This chapter discusses a situation that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the U.S. media, and most citizens would consider a success story in the so-called war on drugs—small-scale marijuana producers who, through the actions of interdiction authorities, were largely driven out of business. However, this chapter presents a slightly different angle on the war on drugs in that it examines the recent history of marijuana production among Maya farmers in southern Belize: why seemingly traditional and conservative peasant farmers turn to drug production in the first place, how these activities affect village life and culture, and some implications and lessons this case study provides on the larger battle over what crops, legal or illegal, smallholder farmers produce. This chapter provides some useful lessons for the larger war on drugs because the Mopan and Kekchí Maya are quite similar to other smallholder farmers who grow most of the commodities that are then consumed in raw form or manufactured into narcotics. These are economically poor farmers who perceive psychoactive plants as cash crops, much like coffee or cacao, that are consumed in distant lands by unknown peoples.
THE TRANSATLANTIC NARCO-NEXUS: SOUTH AMERICA, AFRICA, AND EUROPE IN THE CONTEMPORARY DRUG-TRAFFICKING DYNAMICS
