Lives and Legitimacy in the Coca-Growing Territories of Caquetá

This book explores the complexities of the lives of women and men who have dedicated their labor to grow coca in the Caquetá, part of the Amazonia region, a territory that has historically been seen as a place of illegality, a dominant narrative that produces a vision of the Amazon as a land without people, and a stateless land.Estefanía Ciro Rodríguez argues these narratives have existed to legitimized the war on drugs. This argument works in three specific ways. First, she historicizes the very narratives of the Amazon to understand how multiple actors disputed different visions of power. Second, she shows how the narratives about the Amazon have also legitimized multiple forms of violence against those who are considered the others –indigenous minorities. Third, Ciro also offers a detailed ethnography to offer a complex understanding how women and men became coca growers, the social movement these peasants created to legitimize their labor in a context of economic and political violence.