Narrar el mundo narco: Diálogo con Cristian Alarcón y Philippe Bourgois

Abstract

Salud Colectiva initiated a dialogue between anthropologist Philippe Bourgois and journalist Cristian Alarcón. They offer here a backstage introduction to two daring, controversial and innovative books. Bourgois' In search of respect, recently published in Spanish, recounts the daily lives of crack dealers in Harlem, New York. The book Si me querés, quereme transa (If you love me, love me as a transa), by Alarcón, enters into the world of cocaine and "pasta base" (base paste) dealers in Buenos Aires. In the two works we see how both journalistic and ethnographic researches evolve into learning processes completely devoid of the typical arrogance of an explorer in strange territories. Alarcon and Bourgois had to undergo transformations and learn a habitus completely unfamiliar to them in order to build connections with Buenos Aires "transas" and Puerto Rican crack dealers. Such bonds are presented as necessary conditions for the kind of qualitative investigation they defend.