"This is an extraordinary ethnography of violence—especially gendered violence—in the remote rural village synonymous with ‘El Chapo,’ Mexico’s largest drug don. A beautifully written, brilliant theoretical work that leaps off the page."—Philippe Bourgois, author of In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio
"Adèle Blazquez’s is perhaps the finest existing ethnography of any one of Mexico’s illicit economies. Elegantly written and impeccably argued, this study of daily life among Badiraguato’s poppy-growing peasants, ranchers, and town-dwellers offers something that is exceptionally rare: genuine understanding."—Claudio Lomnitz, author of Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism
"Blazquez does something powerful by illuminating real and complicated people who are trying to live within violent circumstances not of their making. This is the type of book that will stay with you."—Alexander Avina, author of Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside