Abstract
In this paper we approach a current issue related to the so-called concept of narcoculture. Several works in Latin America and the United States have addressed this matter and not only accept the term narcoculture, but also stress both the symbolic and aesthetic perspectives. In order to rethink the concept of narcoculture from different angles, we appeal to Juri Lotman and Boris Uspensky’s proposals regarding the concepts of culture, non-culture and anticulture. Rather than accept and reproduce the concept of narcoculture, by means of linking Lotman and Uspensky’s approach with the standpoint of complexity thinking and transdisciplinarity, we propose the treatment of drug trafficking as a semiosphere of anticulture. We emphasize the contradictions inherent in the actors dwelling in this semiosphere, incorporating reflections from chaotic and barbaric processes designed to wreak havoc in Mexican society. The common acceptance of the concept of narcoculture does not acknowledge the current devastation and bloodshed produced by narco-traffickers and others in cahoots with the Mexican government and its militarized drug war strategy. During the last few decades, drug trafficking has inspired organized crime and their actors, spurring the representation of everyday societal features such as music, fashion, architecture, or traffickers’ social status.
References
Álvarez Gardeázabal, Gustavo. 1995. La cultura del narcotráfico. Debates de número, cultura y narcotráfico 7. 5–7.Search in Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1976. La semiología. Buenos Aires: Tiempo contemporáneo.Search in Google Scholar
Baudrillard, Jean. 1978. Cultura y simulacro. Barcelona: Kairós.Search in Google Scholar
Cabañas, Miguel A. 2014. Imagined narcoscapes: Narcoculture and the politics of pepresentation. Latin American Perspectives 41(195). 3–17.10.1177/0094582X13518760Search in Google Scholar
Campbell, Howard. 2014. Narco-propaganda in the Mexican “drug war”: An anthropological perspective. Latin American Perspectives 41(195). 60–77.10.1177/0094582X12443519Search in Google Scholar
Di Rosa, Hervé. 2004. Narcochic narcochoc: La “narcoculture” nous interroge. Cimaise 1. 1–6Search in Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto. 1994. Apocalypse postponed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Esch, Sophie. 2014. In the crossfire: Rascón Banda’s Contrabando and the “narcoliterature” debate in Mexico. Latin American Perspectives 41(195). 161–176.10.1177/0094582X13519752Search in Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1969. El orden del discurso. Barcelona: Tusquets.Search in Google Scholar
Lane, Jill & Godoy-Anativia, Marcial (eds.). 2011. #NARCOMACHINE. Special issue, E-MISFÉRICA. 2 (8). http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/e-misferica-82/reguillo (accessed 10 October 2014).Search in Google Scholar
Lepik, Peet. 2002. The anticulture phenomenon in Soviet culture. Semiotica 138(1/4). 179–203.10.1515/semi.2002.003Search in Google Scholar
Lepik, Peet. 2008. Universals in the context of Juri Lotman’s semiotics. Tartu: Tartu University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri M. 1974. The sign mechanism of culture. Semiotica 12(4). 301–305.10.1515/semi.1974.12.4.301Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri M. 1979. El problema del signo y del sistema sígnico en la tipología de la cultura anterior al siglo XX. In Juri M. Lotman & Escuela de Tartu (ed.), Semiótica de la cultura, 41–66. Madrid: Cátedra.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri M. 1998. La semiosfera II. Semiótica de la cultura, del texto, de la conducta y del espacio. Madrid: Cátedra.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri M. 2001. Universe of the mind. A semiotic theory of culture. London & New York: I. B. Tauris.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri M. 2009. Culture and explosion. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110218473Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri M. 2011. La influencia en el campo cultural. Criterios 37. 247–261.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri M. 2013. The unpredictable workings of culture. Tallin: Tallinn University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri M. & Boris Uspensky. 1979. Sobre el mecanismo semiótico de la cultura. In Juri M. Lotman & Escuela de Tartu (ed.), Semiótica de la cultura, 67–92. Madrid: Cátedra.Search in Google Scholar
Mercille, Julien. 2014. The media-entertainment industry and the “war on drugs” in Mexico. Latin American Perspectives 41(195). 110–129.10.1177/0094582X13509790Search in Google Scholar
Monsiváis, Carlos (ed.). 2004. Viento rojo. Mexico: Plaza y Janés.Search in Google Scholar
Morin, Edgar. 1997. Introducción al pensamiento complejo. Barcelona: Gedisa.Search in Google Scholar
Morin, Edgar. 2003. El Método V. La humanidad de la humanidad. La identidad humana. Madrid: Cátedra.Search in Google Scholar
Morin, Edgar. 2004. El Método VI. Ética. Madrid: Cátedra.Search in Google Scholar
Price, Patricia L. 2005. Of bandits and saints: Jesús Malverde and the struggle for place in Sinaloa, Mexico. Cultural Geographies 12. 175–197.10.1191/1474474005eu325oaSearch in Google Scholar
Rojas-Sotelo, Miguel L. 2014. Narcoaesthetics in Colombia, Mexico, and the United States: Death narco, narco nations, border states, narcochingadazo? Latin American Perspectives 41(195). 215–231.10.1177/0094582X13518757Search in Google Scholar
Trujillo Amaya, Julián. 2013. Narco cinema, narco soap operas and narco literature. Ampersand Lab. http://www.amplab.ca/2013/12/08/narco-cinema-narco-soap-operas-narco-literature/ (accessed 6 October 2014).Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
