Coca and Cocaine

Catalog description

This seminar compares practices that center on coca leaf production in indigenous communities, where coca cultivation has been sustained over millennia, on the one hand, with practices linked to the post 1961 “drug war” in the Americas, on the other. Participants will read scholarly work in history and anthropology, support one another through a research process, and explore what historians and other scholars might contribute to discussions about drug policy. Case studies we'll explore include Peruvian Quechua-speakers' ritual use of leaf, the history of Coca-Cola, patterns of violence in Medellín and Northern Mexico, and the evolution of money laundering in 1980-2010. Students will also have the opportunity to define a topic of interest to them and prepare an in-depth literature review.