Front Business–Back Business: The Social Anatomy of Small-Time Drug Dealing in a Mexico City Neighborhood

Abstract

Research introduced here draws on over two years of ongoing qualitative work of low-level drug dealers in a Mexico City neighborhood. Through interviews and participant observation, we explore the social mechanisms that sustain and facilitate informal drug dealing. Our findings indicate that the sale of illicit products, especially drugs, is a needed supplement to household income that expands and contracts according to economic need. Drug selling is integrated into the context of small licit (front) businesses in which dealers sell small amounts of marijuana and cocaine to trusted clients as a (back) business. These “back businesses” are protected by those who operate them, and family, community members, and corrupt officials who benefit from their existence. Finally, the dealers that we studied occupy a unique niche in the overall structure of drug dealing in the neighborhood by remaining under the radar by not attracting the attention of drug cartels.

Beyond money, power, and masculinity: Toward an analytical perspective on recruitment to Mexican drug trafficking organizations

“…We learned that group connectedness was an added factor that influenced our subjects’ perception of the opportunities for membership. The notion that one’s path toward criminality is tied to significant others supports previous research (Chomczyński et al, 2019; Chomczyński and Guy, 2021) suggesting that intimate, personal, and face-to-face social relations characteristic of kin and friends were antecedents to participating in low-level drug dealing in Mexico City. Our interviews offered additional insight for understanding recruitment because they support the idea that a common pool of group experiences created an inclination to accept an offer to join a DTO.…”

“…Gaining access to members of DTOs to interview presented unique challenges; especially in the local settings in which they operate, or correctional facilities. Chomczyński was fortunate enough to have conducted 9 months of ethnographic research on street level drug trafficking in the Mexico City neighborhoods of Tepito, Iztapalapa, and Tacubaya (Chomczyński et al, 2019). Known for their high crime rates, these communities provided an entry point to obtain referrals to interview members of DTOs.…”

The intimacies of drug dealing: narcotics, kinship and embeddedness in Nicaragua and South Africa

“…Venkatesh (1997Venkatesh ( , 2000Venkatesh ( , 2006, for example, explored the social relations surrounding drug dealing in a Chicago housing estate, while Bourgois (1995) highlighted how drug dealers were caught in a range of different relationships in a New York neighbourhood. More broadly, Chomczyński, Guy, and Cortina-Cortés (2019) have investigated the way that drug dealing is entangled with other informal economic activities in a commercial neighbourhood in Mexico City, while in his study of drug dealing in Brazil, Arias (2006) discussed the importance of patron-client networks and social orders. Finally, Das, Ellen, and Leonard (2008), as well as Goodfellow (2008), have explored how drug consumption brings prisons and the state deep into domestic life.…”

Risk Factors of Early Adolescence in the Criminal Career of Polish Offenders in the Light of Life Course Theory

“…We memorized categories and invited respondents to develop and co-create interview scenarios by adding their own questions or editing ours. This gave us a richer description than a formal interview tool, and our interviewees became less suspicious [ 18 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ]. We believe that this method put our subjects on a more egalitarian footing [ 33 , 35 , 40 , 41 ].…”