Paper long abstract:

In recent years, the traffic of contraband into Peru has increased, including the smuggling of energy resources. The practices of smugglers are connected to wider networks of traders in rural as well as urban areas, often characterized by illegal organization of transport and use of land. While representing a challenge to state sovereignty, the people involved in these practices criticize state interferences for being immoral and illegitimate. These attitudes suggest not only the existence of multiple legalities, but is also expression of the value ascribed to exchange and circulation in Andean thought. Due to the Peruvian authorities' different and often contradictory agendas regarding these practices, this paper explores how such multiple 'legalities' articulate with different sources of authority and whether this is an example of how 'illegibility' has an ongoing role in modern systems of rule (Li 2001). Ethnography from Peru is thus related to wider comparative/theoretical frameworks.