Paper Short Abstract:

Colombian smugglers of Venezuelan gasoline turn to collective action and trade unionism to militate for the decriminalisation of gasoline sale and the provision of vocational retraining programmes, and start up capital. These programmes give us insight into the production of the Colombian subject.

Paper Abstract:

Through the 90s and 2000s the Colombian border city of Cúcuta was famous for its contraband and in particular the smuggling of cheap, state-subsidised petrol from Venezuela into Colombia. The petrol smugglers and vendors are known as pimpineros and are named after the four litre petrol cans known as pimpinas. A huge community thrived around these activities and a movement of political organising developed. A formal trade union for the pimpineros was formed in 2013 that helps its members with human rights abuses perpetrated against them by armed gangs. The union has also negotiated state funding for the set-up of several consecutive, co-operative, businesses aimed at providing an exit from the smuggling trade.

This paper looks at these entrepreneurial projects and their supporting institutions to help us to frame pimpineros as a vulnerable population who are seen as needing state intervention rather than being Illegal actors such as paramilitaries or mafia. The term emprendedores forzados – forced entrepreneurs (a play on the legal term desplazados forzados – forcefully displaced peoples) emphasises the vulnerable aspects of the population, as well as hinting towards the heavy influence of Colombia’s entrepreneurial culture on the programme.