RULE OF NETWORKS: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF HARM REDUCTION IN COLOMBIA

Abstract

Finding elements for an anthropology of the contemporary forms of government, this paper aims to study the network of agents, agencies, rationalities, techniques and technologies that regulate drug reduction policies in Colombia. Based on the author's work experience in the elaboration of development projects and policies of public health (2006-2010), and on fieldwork conducted during 2012, the article describes the social life of the Community Based Treatment (CBT), a transnational model designed to "reduce harm" produced by drugs, where "social networks" become the object and subject of interventions. To describe the social universe in which such a statement makes sense, I explore ethnographically the world of the risk experts, actors who are both architects and spokespersons of technologies that seek to convert probabilities of accident and illness into governable objects. International cooperation agencies, civil society organizations grouped in transnational networks, institutions of public administration and a wide range of specialists, technicians, "operators", and local actors with different backgrounds, all interact in this relational meshwork. The agency of these actors contributes towards making the "drug problem" believable, and mystifying the transcendent entity they call the "State".

Key words:
Forms of government; Ethnography; Colombia; Drug policy; Social networks