Alex Diamond, "Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia's Peace Laboratory" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

About this episode

Alex Diamond discusses the impact of Colombia's peace process on rural livelihoods in the village of Briceño, highlighting the challenges faced by farmers in the context of economic dispossession and drug economies.

The Colombian village of Briceño might, at first glimpse, look like many communities in the rural Global South. Many of the people living there rely on small-scale farming, even as a newly constructed hydroelectric dam threatens traditional livelihoods. Yet after decades where Briceño suffered from a bloody conflict, the village has more recently become central to the nation’s hopes for peace. In Governing the Excluded, sociologist Alex Diamond shares a closer look at Briceño and offers unique insight not only into the contemporary Colombian state but to how people across the Global South are struggling to maintain rural livelihoods amid economic dispossession.Governing the Excluded describes a landmark peace process between the Colombian government and the radical FARC guerrillas from the perspective of Colombian farmers, drawing links between economic transformation, drug economies, and armed conflict. Exclusion from global markets for traditional crops like coffee first pushed farmers to grow coca, the raw material for cocaine. This ushered in an era of violent conflict for control of the illicit economy, while farmers continued to be priced out of legal markets. In exchange…

People in this episode

Guest: Alex Diamond

Topics covered

• Colombia
• rural livelihoods
• peace process
• drug economies
• economic dispossession

Keywords

• FARC
• coca
• hydroelectric dam
• economic transformation
• armed conflict

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Governing the Excluded

Books & works: Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia's Peace Laboratory, Governing the Excluded

Places: Briceño, Global South, the Global South

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