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Author Carter, Jon Horne, author.

Title Gothic sovereignty : street gangs and statecraft in Honduras / Jon Horne Carter
Edition First edition
Published Austin : University of Texas Press, 2022

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Description 1 online resource
Series The William and Bettye Nowlin series in art, history, and culture of the western hemisphere
William & Bettye Nowlin series in art, history, and culture of the Western Hemisphere.
Contents Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- A Note on Translations and Anonymization -- Introduction -- Part I. Angels -- 1. Flash -- 2. Baroque -- 3. Allegory -- 4. Image -- 5. Danger -- Part II. Devils -- 6. Underworld -- 7. Dragons -- 8. Crime -- 9. Storm -- 10. Rubbish -- 11. Evil -- 12. Corruption -- 13. Lumpen -- Part III. Justice -- 14. Community -- 15. Sovereignty -- 16. Apocalypse -- 17. Trust -- 18. Futures -- Afterword -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index
Summary Gang-related violence has forced thousands of Hondurans to flee their country, leaving behind everything as refugees and undocumented migrants abroad. To uncover how this happened, Jon Carter looks back to the mid-2000s, when neighborhood gangs were scrambling to survive state violence and mass incarceration, locating there a critique of neoliberal globalization and state corruption that foreshadows Honduras's current crises. Carter begins with the story of a thirteen-year-old gang member accused in the murder of an undercover DEA agent, asking how the nation's seductive criminal underworld has transformed the lives of young people. He then widens the lens to describe a history of imperialism and corruption that shaped this underworld--from Cold War counterinsurgency to the "War on Drugs" to the near-impunity of white-collar crime--as he follows local gangs who embrace new trades in the illicit economy. Carter describes the gangs' transformation from neighborhood groups to sprawling criminal societies, even in the National Penitentiary, where they have become political as much as criminal communities. Gothic Sovereignty reveals not only how the revolutionary potential of gangs was lost when they merged with powerful cartels but also how close analysis of criminal communities enables profound reflection on the economic, legal, and existential discontents of globalization in late liberal nation-states
Subject Cartels -- Honduras -- History
Gangs -- Political aspects -- Honduras -- History
Police corruption -- Social aspects -- Honduras
Tattooing -- Honduras
Electronic books.
e-books.
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural
Electronic books
Cartels
Tattooing
Honduras
Genre/Form Electronic books
History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781477324172
1477324178