Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Anthropocene is the astonishing growth in globally interconnected flows of people, biota, raw materials, commodities, information, and capital. Such flows comprise the linkages between human and environmental systems and can occur within a given geographic locality, between adjacent localities, or between distant localities. However, previous applications of the telecoupling framework have focused on legitimate, or “transparent,” systems; i.e., those operating in the legal sphere of economic activity, such as China’s demand for soy and Brazilian deforestation. By contrast, the linkages between illicit socioeconomic activity and environmental systems appears to be an overlooked aspect of the telecoupling framework. We use the conceptual framework of “dark telecoupling” to describe and clarify the complexities of cocaine trafficking arising from demand in distant North American and European markets to the supply and transit of coca from producing regions of South America, especially Colombia. Licit coupled human and environmental systems may be described by sending, receiving, and spillover systems linked by flows of material, energy, and information, involving agents, causes, and effects. We apply the same analytical framework to illicit telecoupled systems. Viewing illicit drug trade in a broader framework involving both the socioeconomic and environmental context characterizing telecoupled systems reveals linkages, relationships, and feedbacks that have hitherto been seen in isolation. The pervasive and widespread socioeconomic and environmental linkages of “dark” economic activity can be examined and illuminated by the telecoupling framework.