Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

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A War Against Poor People: Dirty War, Narcotics and the Cold War Roots of Mexico's Contemporary Drug Violence

Thu, April 4, 2019
Dinner Program
Alexander Aviña

Alexander Aviña, associate professor of history at Arizona State University, will trace the origins of Mexico's contemporary drug violence—more than 250,000 people killed since 2006—to the use of state violence and terror against rebellious communities and insurgent groups during the 1970s. This '70s “Dirty War” spawned a network of political and military officials that, having eliminated revolutionary challenges to the Mexican state, proved key in the formation of a booming drug industry by the 1980s and 90s.

Alexander Aviña is an associate professor of Latin American history in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. He previously taught at Florida State University. His book, "Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside" (Oxford University Press, 2014), was awarded the Maria Elena Martínez Book Prize in Mexican History for 2015 by the Conference on Latin American History. He has also published articles in the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research and the NACLA Report on the Americas.  

His current research project explores the links between the political economy of narcotics, drug wars, and state violence in 1960s and '70s Mexico.


Food for Thought: Podcast with Alex Avina

Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

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