A Criminal Commodity Consensus. The Coloniality of State Power, State Crime and the Transformation of Property Relations in Mexico

Mexican human rights organizations accuse the Mexican military and federal police of having taken part in tens of thousands of forced disappearances in the last decade. Curiously, the regions in which people disappear are also sites of displacement and changing patterns of land tenure and production. Yet, property relations are seldom a topic of studies on illegal state activities. Through a state theory lens, including Aníbal Quijano's notion of coloniality of power, this article examines conflicts between private property and communal land tenure such as ejidos in Mexico, as two different property regimes. The article aims to show how the state ensemble not only removes legal protection for communal tenure but also mobilizes legal as well as illegal means to force the change of communal lands into private property. Beyond that, the article also aims to show how these changes in land tenure regulation intersect with the Mexican War on Drugs.