Category Archives: The State

Hugo Chávez’s Career Deserves Honest Assessment

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

My column published today in McClatchy-Tribune Company newspapers: Hugo Chávez’s Career Deserves Honest Assessment As Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez fights for his life, an honest assessment of his 14 years in office must take into account his significant achievements. From … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Political Economy, Sovereignty, The State | Comments Off

Meanwhile… Actual Living Mayans: Zapatistas Retake the Plazas

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

After months (years?) of people talking about Mayans in the past tense, as a bygone civilization that predicted the end of the world, tens of thousands of Zapatistas quietly filed out of the mountains in southern Mexico and flooded into … Continue reading →

Posted in #Occupy, Bandits, City, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Spatiality, Territory, The State | 1 Comment

Can Colombia’s Peace Talks Succeed?

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Colombia’s fourth and hopefully definitive try at peace talks with the country’s largest rebel group begin today in Oslo, Norway. The previous three tries between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—once in the 1980s and twice … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Development, Drugs, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Peace, Security, Terror, The State, Violence | Comments Off

“Land laundering”: How Colombian Paramilitaries Hijack Grassroots Development

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

I wrote a guest blog post for Future Agricultures that gives a straight-forward preview of the talk I’m giving this week at the Global Land Grabs conference hosted by Cornell University. A teaser: With the start of peace negotiations this … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Development, Drugs, Forests, Illegality, Political Ecology, Political Economy, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Video Abstract: Territories of Life and Death

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/9ChdRWJkF4o”] A more in depth written description of my project is forthcoming in the pages of Antipode. Thanks to the entire Antipode crew for the award and to others for their kind words.

Posted in Frontiers, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Peace, Political Ecology, Race & Ethnicity, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Grassroots Masquerades: ‘Bottom-Up’ Development, Land Laundering, and Frontier State Formation in Colombia

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

My abstract for what’s looking like a symposium-sized AAG session series (including fellow bloggers Stuart Elden and Gastón Gordillo) on “Violence and Space” organized by Simon Springer and Philippe Le Billon: A paramilitary commander in Urabá, a frontier region of northwest Colombia, has always … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Development, Forests, Frontiers, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Peace, Political Ecology, Race & Ethnicity, Security, Spatiality, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Everyday State Formation

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

I have a new article that was just published in the most recent issue of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space titled, “Everyday State Formation: Territory, Decentralization, and the Narco Land-Grab.” The lag between writing and printing, of course, … Continue reading →

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Development, Drugs, Elites, Everyday Life, Hegemony, Henri Lefebvre, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Karl Marx, Land, Law, Marxism, Primitive Accumulation, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Black and Green

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Asher, Kiran. 2009. Black and Green: Afro-Colombians, Development, and Nature in the Pacific Lowlands. Durham: Duke University Press. Kiran Asher’s Black and Green: Afro-Colombians, Development, and Nature in the Pacific Lowlands argues that “development” and “resistance” are mutually shaped in southwest … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Everyday Life, Forests, Land, Post-Colonial, Race & Ethnicity, The State, Violence | Comments Off

David v. David: Graeber and Harvey in Conversation

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

[vimeo video_id=”41997338″ width=”600″ height=”337″ title=”Yes” byline=”Yes” portrait=”Yes” autoplay=”No” loop=”No” color=”00adef”] Sponsored by Verso Books and The CUNY Center for Place, Culture and Politics. (ᔥ David Harvey)

Posted in City, David Harvey, Political Economy, The State | Comments Off

Beholden: David Graeber & Rebecca Solnit

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Guernica magazine published a great conversation between David Graeber and Rebecca Solnit, two people who I admire as genuinely original thinker-writers with ample street-cred to back it up. They talk mostly about debt, anarchism, and occupy. “Neoliberalism isn’t an economic … Continue reading →

Posted in #Occupy, David Harvey, Everyday Life, Hegemony, Political Economy, The State | Comments Off