From Family Feud to Organised Crime: The Cultural Economy of Cannabis in Northeast Brazil

Abstract

— Traditional family feuding and banditry as well as envy‐inspired violence associated with capitalised irrigation have been intensified by the introduction of cannabis farming and organised crime in the Sertão of Northeast Brazil to the point that today the cannabis producing zone is one of the most violent places in the world. These three interrelated forms of contemporary violence arose, respectively, in the pre‐1940 frontier setting, in the 1940 to 1980 period of rapid Brazilian industrialisation which depressed peasant sectors and stimulated the rise of capitalised irrigation and in the post‐1980 period of economic stagnation and social‐political crisis in Brazil which depressed consumer markets and induced the State to liberalise foreign trade policy to the detriment of periphery regions like the Northeast.

In‐transition culture of experimentation with cannabis in Latin American college students: A new role within a potential drug use sequencing pattern

“…Recently, the Brazilian Senate initiated discussions on the regulation of cannabis in light of the growing decriminalisation support of the Brazilian population, including the ex‐president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Brazil is also an important producer of cannabis, resulting in large increases in cannabis availability in the country . From 2004 to 2010, the prevalence of lifetime illicit drug use increased from 29.3% to 40.3% among 16‐ to 18‐year‐old adolescents, with cannabis and inhalants being the illicit drugs most used .…”

Beyond carbon colonialism: Frontier peasant livelihoods, spatial mobility and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

“…This densely populated region has been the object of different regional development schemes funded by the federal government since the late 19th century. SUDENE (Superintendência do Desenvolvimento do Nordeste) was the first integrated regional development agency to be set up in Brazil and it tried to repeat the experience of the Tennessee Valley Authority (Bicalho and Hoefle, 1990; Furtado, 1973; MINTER, 1973; Prado, 1987; Souza, 1978).…”

“…In the late 1950s and early 1960s the newly-established SUDENE embarked on yet another programme moving poor peasants out of the densely-populated Agreste zone and the environmentally-problematic, semi-arid Sertão to settle frontier areas of western Maranhão, located in the zone of environmental transition to the Amazon. In addition to peasant agitation which some feared to be revolutionary, once again the immediate cause was a severe drought, as had been the case in other massive population movements to the Amazon during the rubber boom in the late 19th century and early 20th century (Andrade, 1973; Bicalho and Hoefle, 1990; MINTER, 1973; Page, 1973).…”

You Pig!

“…All the communities of a specific region are thought to be the same and the scales beyond the local community being studied are just 'context', even if seen as a global context. Consequently, in publications of the last ten years on environmental ethics, political empowerment, violence and frontiers (Bicalho and Hoefle, 1999, 2002, 2008Hoefle, 1999aHoefle, , 2000Hoefle, , 2003Hoefle, , 2004Hoefle, , 2006aHoefle and Oliveira, 2007), I have tried to develop a regional-scalar approach in anthropology, which was first devised in research undertaken in the Sertão of Northeast Brazil some 30 years ago.…”

“…For these subjects a radical cultural political economy approach is far more relevant and better portrays the violent geopolitics of the 21st century (cf. Gregory, 2004;Harvey, 2003;Hoefle, 2004;Sayer, 2001) and this kind of approach in the Sertão is exemplified by Bicalho and Hoefle (1999). The point to be made is that, depending on the subjects being treated, different approaches can be used and that, for the overall cultural reality under study, the 'more eyes' the better.…”