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Abstract

Coca is a controversial plant, existing on the boundary between legality and illegality. This study aims at providing an analytical technique for discussing the problematic of coca in Colombia. Using new theoretical propositions in human geography, a more‐than‐human approach is adopted to encounter coca holistically. The results are a narrative account of coca's social life as experienced by the researcher following its network of non‐cocaine derivatives. An analytical section invokes the Foucauldian dispositif to the drug trade and utilizes concepts of informed materials and technological zones to describe coca outside a political economy discourse. The research finds that coca's dynamic materiality complicates it as a commodity and that these conventional approaches do not fully encapsulate this complexity. By grappling with the messiness of coca's materiality, this paper reveals the multiplicity and interplay of coca's definitions, which lie at the heart of many conflicts.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Pereira, L. (2010). Becoming coca: A materiality approach to a commodity chain analysis of hoja de coca in Colombia. Singapore Journal Of Tropical Geography, 31(3), pp. 384-400, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9493.2010.00412.x. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving
Publisher Keywords:	coca, Colombia, commodity chain, drug trade, materiality, technological zone
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > Sociology & Criminology School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Healthcare Services Research & Management > Food Policy
Related URLs:	Author
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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