Category: Research

• From cuaz to cuate: Training camps for organized crime

  For years now – more or less the entire duration of my doctoral studies – I have been intrigued by the fact that some organized crime groups in Mexico operate training camps. In one form or another, I worked this in to most of my course papers. Once I was done with coursework and working…

  philipljohnson

  November 19, 2019

  Research

  counter/insurgency, crime, Guatemala, Jean Franco, Mexico, violence

• A narco-list of narco-fied narco-words

  Last year, I assembled a database of narco-messages. Towards the end of this process, while I was poring over articles from a Guadalajara-based newspaper, I decided to keep track of the narco-fied terms that I came across. These articles were from the early years of the war on narco-trafficking (which started in December 2006), when…

  philipljohnson

  October 31, 2019

  Research

  crime, language, media, Mexico, narco-messages

• Poverty, inevitability, and synthetic clothing

  When I arrived back in Mexico City in January, everyone was talking about the lines for gas. Recently-inaugurated president López Obrador shut down parts of the national oil and gas distribution network to combat oil theft. I enjoyed the memes doing the rounds, but didn’t think too much more about gas. In the days after…

  philipljohnson

  March 11, 2019

  Research

  Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Hidalgo, Mexico, oil, Tlahuelilpan, Writing

• Violence as a message / Violence plus a message

  I study a phenomenon that, according to the prevailing paradigm in scholarship on violence, really shouldn’t exist. The huge volume of work that seeks to identify logics underpinning seemingly random or inexplicably brutal acts of violence very often explain these excesses in terms of their communicative value. Perpetrating violence is a costly signal; perpetrating grotesquely…

  philipljohnson

  January 1, 2019

  Research

  Hannah Arendt, Jason De Leon, meaning making, narco-messages, violence

• Puzzling over a massacre

  “There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.” Kurt Vonnegut For about three years now, I have been trying to find something intelligent to say about a massacre. I am not sure that I have made much progress, but I have just submitted my most recent attempt to a journal, so I guess we…

  philipljohnson

  September 9, 2018

  Research

  Kurt Vonnegut, publishing, San Fernando, violence, Zetas