Geographies of the Mexican Drug Wars

Mexico has long been a center of illicit drug production and trafficking.  In the whole of Middle America and South America, Mexico has certainly not been alone in this informal sector activity.  In these regions, the systems of agricultural production and the proximity to a captive market create the conditions for the dominance of the drug economy.

In Middle America, where economic wealth and opportunity is fairly unequal, there are many rural peoples that turn to drug agriculture as an essential livelihood.  Some areas of the region are marked by small farming plots where crop yields tend to be low.  With such constraints, many rural farmers increase their earnings by producing illicit drugs that fetch a significantly higher price than other, non-illicit agricultural products.  In Mexico, one of the major Mexican states for drug production is Sinaloa.  Located on the eastern coast of the Gulf of California, Sinaloa has a long history of opium, marijuana, and cocaine production that stems from 19^th century Chinese immigration, World War II geopolitics, and later Colombian trafficking networks.  That history combined with its short distance from the United States border (only about 2 hours by car) has led the state to become a “hometown” for the Mexican drug economy.

Following production, drugs are then sold to the major export controllers, or traffickers, commonly known as cartels.  The drug cartels “control” the territories that include major trafficking routes from the areas of production to the main area of distribution and consumption: the United States.  The “control” of territories and routes has long required intimidation, bribery or outright violence to secure and facilitate the flow of these illegal goods.  Drug cartels have also developed a “control” network that includes significant figures at all scales, including police, the army, judges, and politicians.  The affects of corruption are seen to upset national-scale politics in trying to fight the drug wars, but also turns states, like Michoacán, into puppet states where elections and everyday governance are manipulated by drug cartels.  Where cartel control is pervasive, as in Sinaloa, the whole of society is skewed as social status is associated with drug complicity.  Such areas where corruption and crime are rampant have been dubbed, “zones of impunity” by the Mexican government and are the targets of the “Mexican drug war” begun in 2006 by President Felipe Calderon.

Increasingly, the actual use of violence among Mexican drug cartels has grossly escalated in their struggles for control over territories and accomplices.  The Los Angeles Times has an ongoing series, “Mexico Under Siege: the drug war at our doorstep,” that has been chronicling the increasingly violent power struggles between these drug cartels.  The series includes an interactive map of the ‘drug war deaths’ that have occurred in each of the 31 Mexican states.  The pattern of deaths in the drug wars reveals that the most important territories of control are Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Baja California.  Located along the US borders, Chihuahua and Baja California represent significant trafficking entry points.  Sinaloa being the lucrative source for locally produced illicit drugs is also itself an entry point for product from elsewhere in Mexico, South America and abroad.  In securing and controlling these strategic territories, what has increasingly fueled violence is a reverse smuggling trade in weapons from the US back into Mexico or even in advanced, military-grade weaponry left over from US efforts in places like Guatemala.

Beyond the violent atrocities of the drug wars, fought between cartels and between cartels and the government, there are many other saddening impacts on the peoples residing in these disputed territories.  In border zones, many of the strongest community members, like business owners, law enforcement, and journalists, are targeted by the drug cartels and are forced to flee, creating a new kind of refugee filing for asylum in the US.  As certain border towns become saturated with violence, many residents also flee creating ghost towns.  And, ironically, even as the government makes positive strides in its drug wars, forcing big players out or underground, it hits local businesses with mini-recessions and new waves of crime as smaller players are cut off from their illegal revenue and turn to petting thievery.  Throughout Mexico, the prevalence of the drug economy is also leading to surging addiction rates as drug cartels also find a new local market for consumption.  Further, the ubiquity and extent of drug violence has also begun to distort Mexico’s social values as people become all to used to the prevalence and visibility of drug-related death.

Concept Caching: Bicycle Use and Production in China

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

In the post Geography Directions: The Dilemma of Global Energy, the connections between global energy security and climate change policy are approached from a geographic perspective.  One of these connections is found in China, where there are larger societal changes happening as major transportation modes are shifting from bicycles to cars as more and more middle class Chinese are able to afford them.  This has real implications for the demands on global energy and the resulting relationship with climate change.  It will be development questions such as this that will be the sticking point for agreements on climate change policy.

Geography Directions: The Dilemma of Global Energy

From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline.  Keep up with cutting edge academic geography.  These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.

A recent article in the December Geographical Journal by Michael Bradshaw entitled “Global energy dilemmas: a geographical
perspective”, examines the relationship between global energy security and climate change policy. With growing concerns about the sustainability of the future supply of hydrocarbons and the fact that they are the single largest source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, decarbonising the way energy is produced is a key component of climate change policy. The central proposition of the paper is that as the world faces a global energy dilemma can we have a secure, reliable and affordable supply of energy and at the same time, manage the changeover to a low-carbon energy system? The paper considers the present-day challenges to global energy security, and focuses on the possibility that future oil production might not be able to meet demand. It also looks at how the dangers of climate change are forcing us to rethink the meaning of energy security such that a low-carbon energy revolution is now called for. In addition, the paper explains that while the developed world is principally responsible for the anthropogenic carbon emissions in the atmosphere, a global shift in energy demand is underway and over the next 20 years it is the developing world that will contribute an ever-increasing amount of global emissions. The article also looks at global energy relationships explaining how the processes of globalisation are the driving force behind the shift in energy demand and carbon emissions. Finally, Bradshaw explains how the global energy quandary plays itself out in different ways across the globe.

Shedding further light on the future of fossil fuels, a report published in the same month by Deloitte’s Global Energy & Resources group, “The Oil and Gas Reality Check 2011, a look at 10 of the top issues facing the oil sector” analyses the oil and gas trends and issues for the coming year. The issues range from deepwater drilling, where the next alternative energy source will be found and the growing influence of Asia on the industry. According to the report it is estimated that oil and gas will continue to constitute the world’s primary energy supply for the next 25 years. It explains how Asia’s share in the growth in demand for hydrocarbons has risen substantially while that of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and the European Union has declined. This shift has been caused by high rates of economic growth and increasing populations in many Asian countries. Simultaneously, up to three billion people in developing nations will have bought cars and adopted middle class consumption patterns by 2030. This suggests that more fossil fuels will be needed despite the fact that alternative forms of energy such as wind and solar have grown rapidly. In the meantime oil and gas producers feel they are a bridge to the new energy economy.

By Paulette Cully

To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.

Geography Directions: No More Water by 2025?

From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline.  Keep up with cutting edge academic geography.  These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.

Experts are warning that Yemenis living in the capital city, Sana’a, may no longer have access to water by 2025. Like many Middle Eastern countries, Yemen is an arid country that faces a problem of water scarcity*. Rain and groundwater are the main sources of water in Yemen since there are no rivers in the country. A recent New York Times article reports that if water management does not improve, it may lead to massive population displacement as well as job losses and declining incomes. These conclusions are based on a preliminary study produced by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company at the request of the Yemeni government.

Demand for water in Yemen has greatly increased over the past decades, due to a fast growing population that has doubled since 1975, and to the prevalence of the cultivation of qat, a mildly narcotic leaf that generates more income than other cash crops. Yemeni farms use about 90 percent of the country’s water. Thousands of wells have been drilled illegally to irrigate crops, and the growing need for water and inadequate irrigation techniques have resulted in the depletion of Yemen’s aquifers, with groundwater being extracted faster than it can be replenished by natural discharge. This has led to migration from rural to urban areas, as streams dry up and people can no longer farm on their land. It is important to note that Yemen is a major food importer, with around 90 percent of its food coming from abroad.

There have been different campaigns to educate Yemenis about sustainable water management options at the individual level, like the one in the video presented here, and the creation of Rowyan, a national mascot to encourage water conservation. Several projects related to sustainable water management in Sana’a and at the national level are being funded by international organisations and the EU, and water rationing is being carried out in most of the major cities.

A Geography Compass paper by Hassan et al. (2010) provides insights into the challenges and opportunities related to water management in an arid Arab country. Although the politics, geography and level of water scarcity differ, a comparative approach could be taken to draw parallels between scenarios in Palestine and Yemen. For readers who prefer a more theoretical approach to the sustainability of water use, another Geography Compass paper by Hauhs and Graefe (2009) presents perspectives from the social and natural sciences, and shows how both of these approaches can be combined to facilitate discussions amongst water managers with different backgrounds.

*Water scarce countries are defined by the World Bank as those that have less than 1,000 m3 of renewable internal freshwater resources available per capita in a year. Yemen is estimated to have about 200 m3 of water per capita, which is 3 percent of the global average of 6,750 m3.

By Magali Bonne-Moreau

To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.

Concept Caching: Social Contrasts in Mumbai, India

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

The first successes for the microfinance industry came from India with the Grameen Bank.  However, as discussed in the post Geography Directions: NGOs and Microfinance, the industry has come a long way since those days, in particular through its integration into the neo-liberal framework of development that entangles NGOs, governments, donor agencies and on the ground expectations.  This image provides the visual companion for the areas most commonly served by microfinance NGOs in India: cities.  Indian cities, like Mumbai, are some of the most unequal places in the world.  At its heart, microfinance is intended to service the financially excluded and to help alleviate poverty.  However, as the post describes, the clustered geography of these microfinance NGOs into cities has likely contributed to several trends that may no longer best serve these intentions.

Geography Directions: NGOs and microfinance

From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline.  Keep up with cutting edge academic geography.  These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.

On 29 July 2010 The New York Times reported that one of the world’s largest microfinance organizations, India’s SKS Microfinance, was preparing to launch on the Indian stock market. Whilst not the first, SKS was one of the biggest, and it caused controversy because a US-based non-profit microfinance group invested in SKS, Unitus, had said it would close down its microfinance activities after the launch. Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the microfinance pioneer he co-founded (Grameen Bank), criticized the move as encouraging profit maximisation. The launch ultimately raised around $350m. Besides launching on the stock market, Indian microfinance institutions are also pursuing securitization, with micro-loans being pooled into marketable securities.

A 2010 article by Bipasha Baruah looks at the role of NGOs in microfinance. Baruah acknowledges the success of NGO microfinance in extending credit to financially excluded groups, particularly women, but points to problems of sustainability, with many smaller microfinance NGOs dependent on donor funding and government subsidies, partly because many provide social services such as rights awareness and literacy classes alongside microcredit. Particularly for these less financially focussed NGOs, attempts to provide links for the poor into the formal banking system can serve poverty reduction well, since this offers a much broader range of financial instruments, including savings accounts, which NGOs cannot legally provide. Baruah highlights doubts in the literature about the long-term impact of microcredit on income levels of the poor, whilst noting benefits in consumption smoothing and women’s control over household resources. Studies also show concentration of NGOs in urban and better-developed areas, with less activity in very rural and very poor areas, following a certain market logic which in some cases leads to competition between microfinance NGOs in relatively well-served areas, at the expense of covering areas with greater financial exclusion. Contradictions between financial sustainability and reaching the poorest may also appear, with NGOs in some cases “moving up the poverty scale” to focus on those more able to borrow and repay.

Beyond this, Baruah argues that “the use of microfinance carries implicit neo-liberal assumptions about how development should occur.” She highlights literature showing that borrowers often lack economies of scale, complementary inputs, key skills, or other requirements for succeeding in an often highly competitive marketplace with limited microcredit funds. Uncoordinated access to microcredit can often lead to an overexpansion of particular local industries, limiting the poverty alleviation benefits and making microcredit, in one commentator’s words, “a glorified form of subsistence.” Some NGOs have recognised these problems and attempted to support borrowers with various aspects of enterprise development, including information and training. Some NGOs also organise women to pool their labour or act as unions to demand increased wages and better working conditions, and Baruah suggests pressing for government employment programs to support the poorest, who are often unwilling to seek credit because they lack the other resources needed to use such credit effectively. Baruah concludes that overall microfinance “is firmly embedded within a neo-liberal framework that seeks to increase access to existing financial resources without really challenging the entrenched status quo of unequal power relations between different groups of people,” and that this is precisely why microfinance has enjoyed such great support from governments, NGOs and donor agencies.

By Robin de la Motte

To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.

Behind the Millennium Development Goals

Last month the United Nations General Assembly met in New York to discuss the progress of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) created in 2000.  The MDGs are an excellent geographic case study as well as an appropriate lens for viewing geographic areas and relationships in world regions.  They can be investigated from the context of the late 1990s.  Global power dynamics can be traced among the structures of international governance and the world economy.  Assumptions and expectations can be unraveled from the focus on social indicators and development, rather than economic development alone.  The interconnections and impacts of local realities can be woven together among the abstract semantics of these aims.

The creation of the MDGs was an outcome of several decades’ worth of United Nations (UN) conferences and summits.  In 2000, the UN Millennium Declaration was signed by all 189 of the member countries, which had the overarching goal of combating global poverty.  At that time, two underlying reasons informed the creation of these eight goals.  First, there had been an overall decrease in the levels of international aid committed by wealthier countries.  Second, the overall increasing pace of globalization was feared to spread global ills, like terrorism, crime, and disease into the developed world.  Moreover, the 2010 Millennium Development Summit has been plagued by similar setbacks: the continuing indolence of developed world donations over the last decade, worsened by the impacts of the recent global recession.  There have also been some echoes of the role of development and poverty in combating global terrorism.

The MDGs, and the UN from which they originate from, can be investigated for their traces of global power.  Studying development often begins with classifying the world into a continuum of more developed vs. less developed or developing.  Ultimately, behind this binary is a division of the world into rich and poor, power-full and power-less.  Global political and economic structures have emerged from the developed, rich, power-full world, and exhibit the assumptions and expectations from those privileged positions.

The 2000 UN Millennium Declaration does exhibit a slightly different perspective on development than previous theories.  First, it may be seen as recognition of the limits of economic development alone as a path to providing greater welfare for all global peoples.  Typically, economic development theories, which rely on economic development indicators like Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Income (GNI), undervalue the contributions of subsistence and informal activities, as well as underestimate the impact of accounted economic activities on the environment.  These oversights may have contributed to a view of economic re-structuring and trade policies as ineffective in combating and mitigating social problems in the developing world.  Second, it may also be a rejection of another path to greater welfare – the theory of “teaching” less developed peoples how to generate their own wealth at home.  The complexities of such lessons combined with “culture of poverty” notions perhaps led to the abandoning of that path.  In the end, the paths to greater welfare are not so clear anyway, as shown in lack of progress of Goal Eight to develop a “global partnership for development.”  Whatever the notions behind the formation of the MDGs, they do exhibit two hopeful expectations of the developed world for what development through aid can accomplish: long, healthy, educated, quality lives; and a reduction of global ills.

This connection of scales, the lives of local people to the lives of global societies, exhibits the interconnections and impacts that have led to the creation of each of the MDGs.  Goal One aims to eliminate extreme poverty and hunger, both of which relate to ensuring that basic needs are met for all people.  Once basic needs are met, Goals Two and Three aim to make primary education universal, to promote gender equity and to empower women.  Educating people, especially women, has a clear correlation to economic progress, which adds to the human capital, productivity, and output of a country, or its development.  Goals Four, Five and Six seek to target the populations that are most vulnerable in poverty and to reduce, their often preventable, high mortality and disease rates.  Not combating preventable deaths of women and children would ultimately undermine the first three goals and the economic progress they would bring.  Goal Seven also factors into national progress by instilling ethnics and policies of environmental sustainability to improve the quality of life and to protect national assets.  In theory these goals are sound and reasonable; however, the last 10 years have shown the complexity to their implementation.

To lead class discussions about the MDGs, their complexities, and their progress, students can discuss one or more recent news articles on certain goals.  One focus has been on “energy poverty,” and the idea that access to clean energy will make the eradication of poverty possible.  It is also well known that most of poor people are women.  Accordingly, there has been much said about women’s development, women’s health, maternal mortality, equity and empowerment.  Also, there has been mention of the environmental sustainability, but with a new take on its significance.  Finally, there is an excellent interactive media created by the Guardian that visually presents the progress of three major indictors.

Discussion Questions:

1. What makes a more developed country?  What makes a less developed country?  Consider both economic and social development factors.
2. Why do you think the “eradication of poverty” is an important global goal?  What do you think about the role of developed countries in this cause?
3. Review the Guardian’s Millennium Goals interactive.  Why do you think hunger, primary education and infant mortality are considered “crucial indicators” by the Guardian?  Why do they compare these indicators to GDP?

GeoDiscoveries: South Asian Agriculture

In addition to providing quality textbooks and course content, Wiley offers an excellent media library of GeoDiscoveries that include content animations and comprehension activities.  These media tools will aid students in visualizing concepts over time and space and test their understanding using geographer’s tools.  Check with your Wiley representative to ask about the library of GeoDiscoveries that may accompany your course textbook.

GeoDiscoveries: South Asian Agriculture

One of the basic relationships that help to explain some of the devastation associated with the 2010 Pakistan Floods, described in the post Interconnections amid the floodwaters of Pakistan, is that of climate and agriculture.  This activity includes several interactive maps where students can identify and draw connections among the climatic, vegetation and population patterns of South Asia.

Interconnections amid the floodwaters of Pakistan

The devastating floods that have inundated most of Pakistan over the summer provide plenty of opportunity for a sobering look at the interconnections between climate, politics, economy, and society, across scales.  Outside of the aid and trade questions that have been raised among the international community in helping Pakistan recover, there have been other interesting connections that can be discussed in many geography classes.

For many following this story, it seemed to begin with the torrential monsoon rains.  However, the actual events began with drought.  Below average rainfall levels were experienced in 2009 and as of early July 2010 they were expected to worsen.  National Geographic released a series of photos titled, “Amid Drought, Pakistan Prays for Rain.” And come the end of July, their prayers were answered.

Only a few weeks after the National Geographic photos, torrential monsoon rains begin to engulf Northern Pakistan, the very area shown to be stricken in the photos.  The levels of rainfall in just a few weeks broke records for the last 100 years.  Early on, there were cautionary words for the stressed Pakistani government, already fighting insurgency and coping with other domestic disasters, as they began to appeal to the international community for aid.  Following the initial rains, Pakistan was hit by high temperatures and continued rains that caused additional flooding and landslides.

For a developing world infrastructure, already uneven and inconsistent, the magnitude of destruction during and following the floods proved immense.  The first reports profiled the human devastation as thousands of people were killed and millions made homeless.  Included in these reports were the effects on livelihoods, as entire villages and towns, agricultural fields and livestock herds, food stores, and essential transport and social networks of roads, hospitals, etc., were wiped out.  The widespread damage is seen to set back the Pakistani infrastructure by many years.

For survivors, they were challenged with the day to day battle for food, limited by actual provisions or by rising food prices.  Limited access to clean water was leading to dehydration and dangers of water-borne disease.  The lack of shelter saw many flood victims exposed to the sun, high temperatures, disease-bearing insects and poisonous snakes.  The largest at-risk group of survivors are the millions of Pakistani children who are incredibly vulnerable to disease and malnutrition.  Continued rains on top of existing destruction meant survivors had to improvise transport and had to continue moving from one flood-ravaged area to the next.  The spreading impact of the floods and of survivors led to renewed fears over the future food and livelihoods of much larger populations.

Amid the devastation, some reports focused entirely on the destabilizing affects of such a natural disaster, in the already delicate stability of a place like Pakistan.  Much of this potential destabilization was shared between two foci:  the government and the Taliban.  The recovery was argued as the “Last Chance for Pakistan” being the “gravest security crisis” to be faced by the country and the South Asia region.  There were discrimination accusations of aid being delivered first to certain party supporters or wealthy landowners diverting floodwaters from their own fields to others’.  Out of this disarray, it was reported that the Taliban in Pakistan were able to regroup to the degree that considered targeting the already under-resourced aid workers in the country.  In the last few weeks after the flooding, the same problems remain, yet political in-fighting on how to move forward and who should act is now worse than ever.  This has led some to argue that it is the civil-military elite in the Pakistani government that have hindered international aid and that should be relieved of their duties in leading the recovery.  Ultimately, the appeals for international aid have been made on behalf of political stability, fighting insurgency, and also in mitigating the effects of climate change.

Through the drama of Pakistan’s natural disaster, issues of environment and society can be discussed in geography classes.  In physical geography courses, the discussion can focus on big scale issues of climate change and increasing extreme weather events, or can be smaller scale in illustrating flood plain events, like 100- and 500-year events.  In human geography courses, the discussion may venture into economic and social development, political structures, inequality, and the consequences of these for certain cultural/social groups, or overall recovery.  In world regional courses, the discussion can weave these issues together looking at the many human-environment interactions within the country, but also investigate global connections among security, international aid, and sovereignty.

As if this event was not powerful enough in black and white print, there have been many accompanying photo reports.  They add a greater significance to in-class discussions allowing students to visually identify the magnitude of the flooding, destruction and human devastation that these reports entail.  Photojournals have been posted by the Huffington Post, NPR, NPR’s The Two-Way blog, NPR’s Picture Show blog, and National Geographic.  NPR has also produced an interactive map detailing the extent of the floods in Pakistan’s four provinces, providing links to images and videos.

Discussion Questions:

1. Identify what climate region is Pakistan and the Indus River included in and what other climate regions border it?  How might this climate position explain the cycles of drought, monsoon rains, and flooding stages that have been seen in the 2010 Pakistan Floods?
2. Review some of the articles discussing the extent and effects of the Pakistan flooding.  What do these impacts tell us about the economic and social development in Pakistan, and in South Asia?  Think about infrastructure and settlement, population and poverty, and gender equity, among others.
3. What is the primary economic activity in Pakistan?  In what ways is it already environmentally vulnerable?  How has this vulnerability informed issues related to food security and development?  What additional vulnerabilities are revealed in the 2010 Pakistan Flood event?
4. What are some of the global concerns that hinge on Pakistan’s political security?  How are arguments over aid or trade in Pakistan’s recovery aimed at serving global security concerns?

Concept Caching: Informal Activities–India

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

Currently, about 70 percent of India's GDP derives from informal economic activities. Those individuals, who indulge in marginal livlihoods and survival activities outside government regulations, comprise 65-75 percent of workers in urban areas and make up the bulk of the urban poor. Nearly two-thirds of these people are women. Most people who work in the informal sector are low-skilled, rural or small town migrants or those who, for any number of reasons, have fallen out of the formal sector. Barbering and ear cleaning are ancient professions, handed down from father to son through generations. The introduction of cotton buds or Q-tips has hurt the ear cleaning trade. The Federal Government is using barbers to disseminate information about HIV and AIDS because they believe that men are more likely to discuss intimate details of their sex-life with their hair cutter as opposed to family members or colleagues. The barbers keep a supply of governmment-issued condoms on hand. BA Weightman

In thinking about the possible connections that can be made to the post Geography Directions: Haptic Technologies and the Geographies of Touch, this image provides a bit of humor and perspective about haptic scales, technology, and the geographies of touch.  From the American viewpoint, where personal space is prized, the close contact shown in this image is a little astounding.  It exhibits a cultural difference in the way that bodies are managed and interact through touch.  Geographers that study the space of the body are in the vanguard of geographic research.

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