1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910460549303321

Autore

Civico Aldo

Titolo

The Para-state : an ethnography of Colombia's death squads / / Aldo Civico

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Oakland, California : , : University of California Press, , 2016

©2016

ISBN

0-520-96340-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (261 p.)

Disciplina

986.106/35

Soggetti

Death squads - Colombia

Paramilitary forces - Colombia

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue: From the Field Journal -- Introduction -- 1. "Everything I Did in the Name of Peace" -- 2. Fragments from the Shadows of War -- 3. Limpieza -- 4. An Ethnography of Cocaine -- 5. The Intertwinement -- 6. Demobilization and the Unmasking of the State -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Since its independence in the nineteenth century, the South American state of Colombia has been shaped by decades of bloody political violence. In The Para-State, Aldo Civico draws on interviews with paramilitary death squads and drug lords to provide a cultural interpretation of the country's history of violence and state control. Between 2003 and 2008, Civico gained unprecedented access to some of Colombia's most notorious leaders of the death squads. He also conducted interviews with the victims of paramilitary, with drug kingpins, and with vocal public supporters of the paramilitary groups. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, this riveting work demonstrates how the paramilitaries have in essence become a war machine deployed by the Colombian state to control and maintain its territory and political legitimacy.