Narratives of Vulnerability in Mexico's War on Drugs

“This book provides an important and eloquent analysis of how cultural productions related to the War on Drugs reveal the ways the victimization of migrants in transit, journalists, and the relatives of disappeared ultimately give rise to crucial modes of politics and resistance. This is a topic that will be of great interest to anyone interested in the war on drugs, migration, democracy in Mexico, or indeed imperatives in general for human rights and social justice.”

--Shaylih Muehlmann, University of British Columbia, Canada

This book explores the current human rights crisis created by the War on Drugs in Mexico. It focuses on three vulnerable communities that have felt the impacts of this war firsthand: undocumented Central American migrants in transit to the United States; journalists who report on violence in highly dangerous regions; and the mourning relatives of victims of severe crimes, who take collective action by participating in human rights investigations and searching for their missing loved ones. Analyzing contemporary novels, journalistic chronicles, testimonial works, and documentaries, the book reveals the political potential of these communities’ vulnerability and victimization portrayed in these fictional and non-fictional representations. Violence against migrants, journalists, and activists reveals an array of human rights violations affecting the right to safe transit across borders, freedom of expression, the right to information, and the right to truth and justice. 

Raúl Diego Rivera Hernández is an Associate Professor at Villanova University. He has Edited of Del Internet a las calles: #Yosoy132, una opción alternativa de hacer política (2016). His research chiefly focuses on cultural representations of the human rights crisis and the War on Drugs in Mexico.