Mexican Drug Violence

About the Book

“Brutally honest… a deeply extraordinary and original work.”
- SEBASTIAN JUNGER.

With an estimated 250,000 people killed in 15 years, the Mexican drug war is the most violent conflict in the Western world. It shows no sign of abating. In this book, Dr Teun A. Voeten analyzes the dynamics of the violence. He argues it is a new type of war called hybrid warfare: multidimensional, elusive and unpredictable, fought at different levels, with different intensities with multiple goals. The war ISIS has declared against the West is another example of hybrid warfare.

Voeten interprets drug cartels as ultra-capitalist predatory corporations thriving in a neoliberal, globalized economy. They use similar branding and marketing strategies as legitimate business. He also looks at the anthropological, individual level and explains how people can become killers. Voeten compares Mexican sicarios, West African child soldiers and Western jihadis and sees the same logic of cruelty that facilitates perpetrating ‘inhumane’ acts that are in fact very human.

About the Author

Dr. Teun Voeten is a war photographer and cultural anthropologist who has covered conflicts worldwide since 1990. He wrote books on the underground homeless in New York, the war in Sierra Leone, drug related crime in Belgium and the Netherlands and made the photo book ‘Narco Estado. Drug Violence in Mexico’.