Paper short abstract:

‘Pirated’ music and movies, ‘fake’ fashion, and money smuggling collected from credit cards are unintended consequences of global neoliberalism. I introduce the concept 'illegality mesh' to describe the entanglement of informal and illegal activities in the Latin American urban space.

Paper long abstract:

Blank CDs from China and Korea supply the market for 'pirated' music and movies in Latin America. In Mexico, more than 400 million pirate CDs are illegally copied and sold across the country and, through transnational smuggling networks, reach as far as the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes. 'Fake' bags and clothing are a booming sector in the popular, informal street economy of the region. Venezuelan smugglers collect credit cards to charge payments in Colombia, profiting from the disparity between the currency exchange in the formal and black markets. These activities have a far-reaching impact on the local economies, livelihood of urban populations, and state policies.

Piracy in music and movies, retail of fake accessories and fashion, or money smuggling, can only be understood as unintended consequences of global neoliberalism. Furthermore, these phenomena constitute new forms of illegality. In this paper, I introduce the concept 'illegality mesh' to describe the entanglement of shadow and illegal activities in the informal commerce in urban enclaves. To what extent are the different illegal economies related to each other? How are these spatialized in the urban context? Ethnographic material gathered in the San Juan de Dios market in Guadalajara, Mexico, and the Colombian-Venezuelan border will be presented to discuss on the informal sector, the black market, and the creation of new criminalities under the influence of global neoliberalism.