Abstract
Paraguay has become the main cannabis producer in South America and one of the largest exporters in the world. Some investigations about the cultivation of marijuana in the country portray a cruel environment in which peasants are exploited in “almost feudal” conditions by intermediaries who buy their crops at unreasonably low prices. However, a group of peasants who use the Mbaracayú Forest Nature Reserve as their labour area have created a safe and profitable ecosystem for developing their business. Based on interviews with key informants and visits to the area, the article describes the constraints and incentives that lead those peasants to engage in criminal activities, the strategies they have used to establish protective barriers, and the moral justifications that emerge as a result of their success in doing business. Although there are violent practices and extortion, we claim that the decision-making process to get involved in illegal markets is a free action influenced by alternative moral understandings that provide reasons and justifications for breaking the law. The moral map of these cannabis growers goes far beyond the mere economic justification of generating material resources and is related to economic, institutional, and social premises linked to a generalized aspiration of dignity and a life worth living. The functioning of informal institutions learned through previous interactions with state and non-state actors who regulate and protect the market, the perceived social approval/legitimation of the activity by referent groups, and the awareness of the capacity and skills necessary to successfully conduct the business have a crucial importance in the moral reformulation.
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Notes
See for instance: https://es.insightcrime.org/noticias-crimen-organizado-paraguay/.
Some authors (Correia 2019; Elgert 2016) have claimed that the power of the agrarian elite was key to promoting the removal of leftist president Fernando Lugo. In 2012, then-President Lugo’s attempts to increase the export tax marginally to 6% were ‘‘balked at’’ by soy producers, and met not with debate, but with flat-out refusal (Desantis and Cristaldo 2011).
Department of Concepción, Amambay, Canindeyú y Alto Paraná.
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Acknowledgements
Authors would like to thank all the key informants that were interviewed. Their insight information was crucial for this research. They also want to thank the comments of the reviewers, that helped to improve the article and the theoretical perspective. The contents of this article reflect only the view of the authors.
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This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) under the framework of UIDB/03122/2020 and UIDP/03122/2020 projects. It was also supported with funding from the previous strategic programme of the Centro de Estudos Internacionais Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (with the reference UID/CPO/03122/2019).
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The corresponding author led drafted the text and defined the structure. Both authors developed the methodology, research plan and carried out interviews. The second author remained in Paraguay during all the process and develop a second round of interviews and fieldwork. The content was discussed among the authors and they both prepared the final database and systematization of the findings. The corresponding author answered the reviewers and led the revision of the article.
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Moriconi, M., Peris, C.A. Cultivating Cannabis in a paraguayan nature reserve: Incentives and moral justification for breaking the law. Trends Organ Crim (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-022-09464-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-022-09464-z