Abstract

BECERRA ROMERO, América Tonantzin  and  HERNANDEZ CRUZ, Diego Armando. Fascination with power: consumption and appropriation of narcoculture among young people raised in contexts of drug-trafficking. Intersticios sociales [online]. 2019, n.17, pp.259-285. ISSN 2007-4964.

This paper discusses the cultural consumption and appropriation of narcocorridos and narco TV series (i.e., songs and programs that tend to glorify drug-trafficking and drug-traffickers) among young people raised in contexts of poverty and drug-trafficking, specifically in Nayarit, western Mexico. Research was based on applying questionnaires and organizing focus groups. Results show that young people tend to consume cultural products of this kind because they provide diversion, action and emotion but, more importantly, that they are attracted by the representations of power in the narco world. In their view, this power allows people to obtain money and luxuries, control others and, above all, provides social visibility and a dominant social position. As a result, narcocorridos and narco TV series can exert a strong influence on young people with an ardent desire to emerge from conditions of marginalization and vulnerability to gain social recognition, and son can encourage them to enter, or remain in, that narco world of drug-trafficking.

Keywords : young people; narcoculture; cultural appropriation; power.

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