CLACS Speaker Series: Narratives of youth, violence and drugs. Comparing “mano dura” in Ecuador and the Philippines

On October 7th, CLACS and the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies are excited to present Cristina Cielo, who will be presenting "Narratives of youth, violence and drugs. Comparing “mano dura” in Ecuador and the Philippines"

The US led global campaign for the “War on Drugs” has had severe consequences throughout the global South. Among these impacts is the criminalization of marginal populations, particularly young men, which has provided justification for security responses ranging from militarization to extra-judicial killings to selective disappearances. This paper examines the role that the figure of youth plays in government rhetoric justifying strong hand measures to battle drug trade in Ecuador and the Philippines. The two country’s radically different discourses on youth in their drug wars allows us to understand that specific national constructions of disposable populations are articulated with US influence in global political economies.

Even after its independence, the Philippines has served as a US geopolitical outpost and its drug war takes on protective characteristics that legitimize state violence against suspected drug users in order to “save our youth”. The drug war in Latin America, in contrast, has identified more direct targets for US deployment of political and enforcement strategies and resources. In the Ecuadorian narratives that justify increased military and police presence, government and media representations of youth focus on racialized young men as criminals. Recently, a law was enacted that increases punitive measures in Ecuador’s youth justice system. A comparative examination of the figure of young people in the Philippines and Ecuador’s state responses to violence and drugs sheds light on the construction of "internal enemies" in the contexts of postcolonial and imperial inequalities.

Cristina Cielo is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Gender Studies at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) in Ecuador.