In the Picture – Narco Estado: Drug violence in Mexico with Teun Voeten

After three years focusing on the drug related violence destabilising Mexico, photographer and anthropologist Teun Voeten has just released his latest photobook Narco Estado. Voeten photographed the drug violence capital, Ciudad Juarez, as well as other hot spots such as Culiacan and Michoacan.

Voeten will present his images and speak about the collaborative and anthropological approach he adopted for the book, using introductory essays by El Paso based anthropologist Howard Campbell as well as Culiacan based writer Javier Valdez Cardenas. Voeten‘s images and the text combine to achieve a punchy work which tries to explain why the drug violence in Mexico can no longer be ignored as a fringe criminal problem.

This event will be moderated by Peter Watt, Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Sheffield. He is co-author of Drug War Mexico: Politics, Violence and Neoliberalism in the New Narcoeconomy, published earlier this year by Zed Books.

Teun Voeten has covered the conflicts in the Former Yugoslavia, Colombia, Rwanda, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, Honduras, DR Congo and Libya for magazines such as Vanity Fair, Newsweek, The New Yorker and National Geographic. He has also worked for the International Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and the UNHCR. He gave a talk at the Frontline Club in 2010 about his book Tunnel People, a journalistic and anthropological account of five months living with an underground homeless community in New York.

Narco Estado is available to purchase online via Teun Voeten’s website.