Beach, Charles;
(2024)
We don’t call it smuggling, we call it commerce: Trade unions for gasoline smugglers and the pimpineros of Norte de Santander, Colombia.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Abstract
This thesis is about gasoline smugglers in the Colombian department of Norte de Santander. Sharing a border with Venezuela, many residents of the region took advantage of state subsidised gasoline sold in Venezuela transported it across the border to sell on the streets of Colombian border towns. They were commonly referred to as pimpineros after the Spanish for jerrican, pimpina. Through many years of social organising, they managed to get the sale of smuggled gasoline decriminalised in Colombia and created a legally recognised trade union called SINTRAGASOLINA. In 2015 due to border closures and the re-criminalization of gasoline sale, what was once a highly visible and iconic part of border culture was pushed further underground and violence associated with illegal border crossing routes increased. This thesis is based on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken during this period of increasing violence and criminalisation of pimpineros between 2017 and 2019. During this time instead of focusing on managing the semi-formalised vending spots of union members, SINTRAGASOLINA focused on petitioning the government to fund and develop cooperatively run businesses as an alternative to smuggling for its members. This thesis follows this work of the trade union and shows how they are a form of ‘militant citizenship’ that uses the constitutionally enshrined ‘right to dignified work’ way to make claims from the state. It also follows attempts to expand the union into the countryside by entering electoral politics and how this human rights framework allows for surprising bipartisan relationships, as well as the ongoing violence’s effect on these political as well as interpersonal relationships. In researching the programmes set up to create the cooperatives and the cooperatives themselves the thesis shows how they were designed around creating an ideal, entrepreneurial Colombian subject which highlights how pimpineros were seen as non-modern like other vulnerable populations in Colombia. In so doing the thesis contributes to several debates prevalent in the anthropology of Colombia and Latin America. In particular the study of social movements, trade unions and informality. It does so by engaging with the anthropological theorising of citizenship and human rights. This thesis is also in dialogue with theories of modernity by ethnographically assessing how the modern subject is created or denied and how subaltern histories are felt within modernity’s ruptures.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | We don’t call it smuggling, we call it commerce: Trade unions for gasoline smugglers and the pimpineros of Norte de Santander, Colombia |
| Language: | English |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10192593 |
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