Contested borders: organized crime, governance, and bordering practices in Colombia-Venezuela borderlands
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Contested borders: organized crime, governance, and bordering practices in Colombia-Venezuela borderlands Viviana García Pinzón 1
& Jorge
Mantilla 2
Accepted: 29 October 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Based on the conceptualizations of organized crime as both an enterprise and a form of governance, borderland as a spatial category, and borders as institutions, this paper looks at the politics of bordering practices by organized crime in the ColombianVenezuelan borderlands. It posits that contrary to the common assumptions about transnational organized crime, criminal organizations not only blur or erode the border but rather enforce it to their own benefit. In doing so, these groups set norms to regulate socio-spatial practices, informal and illegal economies, and migration flows, creating overlapping social orders and, lastly, (re)shaping the borderland. Theoretically, the analysis brings together insights from political geography, border studies, and organized crime literature, while empirically, it draws on direct observation, criminal justice data, and in-depth interviews. Keywords Organized crime . Borderlands . Political geography . Space . Colombia .
Venezuela
Introduction The Colombian-Venezuelan border is currently considered one of the most dangerous borderlands worldwide as turf wars, among a plethora of non–state armed actors, have spiked violence. Meanwhile, the exodus of Venezuelan nationals fleeing the political
* Viviana García Pinzón viviana.garciapinzon@giga–hamburg.de Jorge Mantilla [email protected]
1
German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Hamburg. Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, 20354 Hamburg, Germany
2
Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Trends in Organized Crime
and economic crisis in their country has reached similar proportions to those provoked by the civil war in Syria, and it constitutes the largest migration wave in Latin American recent history (ACNUR 2019). More than 4,8 million people left Venezuela over the last decade. Of them, at least 1,8 million live in Colombia, and the majority entered the country through land borders. The massive influx of migrants and the subsequent humanitarian crisis compound the complex security scenario of a borderland historically characterized by poverty and exclusion, state neglect, the thriving of illegal economies, and non–state forms of order and governance (Idler 2019). Further complicating matters, rifts between the governments of both countries have impeded the development of concerted efforts to address the situation in the borderlands. Against the backdrop of the strained bi-lateral relation, actions such as the closure of borders and blockades to the transnational flow of goods and people are part of the repertoire of tools employed by national governments. That is how, in a decision that remains in force, the Bolivarian government of Venezuela decided to close the border in an alleged national security maneuver against Colombian paramilitaries and smuggling gangs in
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