In Mexico, during the presidency of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and as a direct result of his 'war' on drugs, at least 60,000 people were killed, tens of thousands were 'disappeared' and countless more were subjected to kidnapping and sexual violence. This book analyses how artists and filmmakers, alongside affected citizens, attempted to navigate, articulate and contend with this unparalleled escalation in brutality. In Mexico, during the presidency of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and as a direct result of his 'war' on drugs, at least 60,000 people were killed, tens of thousands were 'disappeared' and countless more were subjected to kidnapping and sexual violence. This book analyses how artists and filmmakers, alongside affected citizens, attempted to navigate, articulate and contend with this unparalleled escalation in brutality. The texts studied here provide a critical visual archive of this first phase in the drug war and show how artists including Pedro Pardo, Fernando Brito, Mónica González and Natalia Almada attempted to challenge official narratives, foster emerging nodes of resistance and seek justice for citizens. Bringing together works of photography, photojournalism, documentary and short fiction cinema, the book argues for the vital role of cultural production in documenting institutional corruption, human rights abuses and narco-related violence in Mexican society and providing a space to grieve and remember the victims. As Mexico's socio-political landscape continues to deteriorate, the book shows how its visual cultural legacy provides a means of understanding and responding to the violence.

The human experience of war is not only remembered by societies through memorials, but also through the depiction of wars and important battles of respective national histories on screen. Very often, the image presented is related to existent semiotics, and the respective sign systems determine the image of heroic actions and violence on the screen. The present volume provides a deeper insight into the forces at play when war films are presented on the big screen and intends to show why and how violent conflicts often have an afterlife as visual media as well.

* Mexico was named an Outstanding Academic Title of 2010 by Choice Magazine.Bloodshed connected with Mexican drug cartels, how they emerged, and their impact on the United States is the subject of this frightening book. Savage narcotics-related decapitations, castrations, and other murders have destroyed tourism in many Mexican communities and such savagery is now cascading across the border into the United States. Grayson explores how this spiral of violence emerged in Mexico, its impact on the country and its northern neighbor, and the prospects for managing it.Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ruled in Tammany Hall fashion for seventy-nine years before losing the presidency in 2000 to the center-right National Action Party (PAN). Grayson focuses on drug wars, prohibition, corruption, and other antecedents that occurred during the PRI's hegemony. He illuminates the diaspora of drug cartels and their fragmentation, analyzes the emergence of new gangs, sets forth President Felipe Calderi?1/2n's strategy against vicious criminal organizations, and assesses its relative success. Grayson reviews the effect of narcotics-focused issues in U.S.-Mexican relations. He considers the possibility that Mexico may become a failed state, as feared by opinion-leaders, even as it pursues an aggressive but thus far unsuccessful crusade against the importation, processing, and sale of illegal substances.Becoming a failed state involves two dimensions of state power: its scope, or the different functions and goals taken on by governments, and its strength, or the government's ability to plan and execute policies. The Mexican state boasts an extensive scope evidenced by its monopoly over the petroleum industry, its role as the major supplier of electricity, its financing of public education, its numerous retirement and health-care programs, its control of public universities, and its dominance

The wounds of Mexico's war on drugs bleeds into every corner of the country, staining the fabric of everyday life.

In his exciting new book, based on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, Maurice Magaña considers how urban and migrant youth in Oaxaca embrace subcultures from hip-hop to punk and adopt creative organizing practices to create meaningful channels of participation in local social and political life. In the process, young people remake urban space and construct new identities in ways that directly challenge elite visions of their city and essentialist notions of what it means to be indigenous in the contemporary era. Cartographies of Youth Resistance is essential reading for students and scholars interested in youth politics and culture in Mexico, social movements, urban studies, and migration.

This is an annual study on organized crime and violence in Mexico. As in previous years, this report compiles the latest available data and analysis to evaluate trends related to drug trafficking and organized crime in Mexico.

Despite the scope of the threat they pose to Mexico’s security, violent drug-trafficking organizations are not well understood, and optimal strategies to combat them have not been identified. While there is no perfectly analogous case from history, Mexico stands to benefit from historical lessons and efforts that were correlated with improvement in countries facing similar challenges related to violence and corruption.