Alex Diamond, "Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia's Peace Laboratory" (U Chicago Press, 2026)Alex Diamond, "Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia's Peace Laboratory" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
New Books in Drugs, Addiction and Recovery
Sociologist Alex Diamond talks with host Sneha Navarapu about his book on rural livelihoods, coca substitution, and peacebuilding in Briceño, Colombia. Their conversation traces how dams, roads, elections, and everyday struggles for work shape both state and guerrilla authority in a former conflict zone.
1:04:14•6 Apr 2026
Coca, Peace, and Power: Alex Diamond on Rural Colombia Beyond the Headlines
Episode Overview
- Peacebuilding policies that remove coca without replacing its income can unintentionally push vulnerable young people toward armed groups.
- Rural livelihoods are central to understanding how concepts like peace, violence, and state authority actually work in practice.
- Large projects such as hydroelectric dams and proposed gold mines reshape land, water, health, and politics, often undermining local trust in the state.
- Clientelist politics around mayoral elections become crucial because the mayor controls jobs, road machinery, and home-improvement resources.
- Community struggles over road construction and maintenance reveal how local people actively shape, and depend on, state institutions.
“I think the most important thing that I did was build relationships.”
How can compelling narratives motivate and inspire others? This conversation between sociologist Alex Diamond and host Sneha Navarapu shows how rigorous research can be gripping, emotional, and politically sharp all at once. Centred on Diamond’s first book, *Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia's Peace Laboratory*, the episode looks closely at the Colombian village of Briceño, where coca crops, peace agreements, and mega-projects collide.
You’ll hear how Diamond’s years of living in the community, drinking countless coffees in the village square, and sharing everyday life with four key families shaped his understanding of peace, violence, and work in a former war zone. Rather than giving a neat success story about peace, Diamond shows how a celebrated coca-substitution programme and a flood of state investment ended up pushing many young men into a re-armed guerrilla group.
His core argument centres on livelihoods: once coca income vanished, the very people most reliant on that work were left with few options, even as the state talked about "peace" and "development". Sneha guides the discussion through vivid examples: President Santos planting the wrong crop for the cameras, a giant hydroelectric dam that brings both displacement and new fungi, and rural roads that exist mainly because communities fought to get excavators sent their way.
One especially striking section looks at the politics of motorbike helmets, showing how villagers juggle rules from both the state (helmets required) and guerrillas (helmets banned) in their daily movements. Along the way, Diamond talks about his love of ethnography, the role of photography and an unfinished documentary film in building relationships, and his new project on cannabis legalisation in the United States.
If you’re curious about how drug policy, rural poverty, and state power actually feel on the ground, this conversation is well worth your time. How might these Colombian stories change the way you think about drugs, work, and "peace" elsewhere?
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