From coca to cocoa: Conflicts, violence and hegemonic compromises in the turbulent Peruvian Amazonia settlement process: The case of Tocache

https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X231189569 EPA: Economy and Space 2024, Vol. 56(1) 136 –154 © The Author(s) 2023 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0308518X231189569 journals.sagepub.com/home/epn AEconomy and Space From coca to cocoa: Conflicts, violence and hegemonic compromises in the turbulent Peruvian Amazonia settlement process: The case of Tocache Daniel Coq-Huelva Departamento de Economía Aplicada II, Instituto de Estudios sobre América Latina, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain Angie Higuchi Department of Business Administration, Universidad del Pacífico, Lima, Perú Ruth Arias-Gutiérrez Universidad Estatal Amazónica, Puyo, Ecuador Rafaela Alfalla-Luque Departamento de Dirección Financiera y Operaciones, Facultad de Turismo y Finanzas, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain Abstract This article analyses the role of conventions, compromises and even violence in the intricate bio-social construction process of cocoa cultivation in the province of Tocache in the Peruvian Amazonia. This article discusses the different phases of the settlement process and its social, institutional and environmental bases. Specifically, the analysis focuses on the dramatic abandonment of coca cultivation and its replacement by alternative crops such as cocoa. Emphasis is placed on the centrality of agents’ normative coherence and coordination. For over 50 years, the civic–market compromise has framed agents’ discourses and actions, although it has sometimes been ostensibly distorted. This framing effect has also occurred in circumstances with considerable recourse to violence and armed conflict. Thus, this article focuses not only on justification processes but also on what happens ‘after justification’ and on how violent situations can coexist with discursive constructions with a relevant normative element. Keywords Convention Theory, agrifood chains, cocoa, coca, Amazonia Corresponding author: Daniel Coq-Huelva, Departamento de Economía Aplicada II, Instituto de Estudios sobre América Latina, Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Ramón y Cajal n.1, Sevilla, 41018, Spain. Email: [email protected] 1189569EPN0010.1177/0308518X231189569EPA: Economy and SpaceCoq-Huelva et al. research-article2023 Original Article Coq-Huelva et al. 137 Introduction One of the key features of the recent evolution of cocoa has been its spectacular expansion. Between 1998 and 2018, the surface area of cocoa crops in the world increased from 6.6 to 11.7 million hectares and production rose from 3.3 to 5.3 million tonnes.1 In other words, in recent years, many new production areas have been created in lands previously covered by tropical forests (Kroeger et al., 2017; Ruf et al., 2015). These new production areas are often characterised by high levels of agency. Also, in many cases, agency is accompanied by high levels of conflict, even violence (Mitchell, 2011). Moreover, cocoa production must be framed in the context of a commodity chain with especially complex power features (Fold, 2002; Fold and Neilson, 2016; Purcell, 2018). This gives rise to several questions: how are local agents coordinated in the global agrifood system? That is, on the basis of what values and conventions? What are their real agency capabilities? What are the dominant power relations both at the local level and throughout the value chain? Under what conditions does violence occur and what are its effects? The production of cocoa in Tocache province (San Martin department, Peru) can give some answers to some of these questions. Peru is a new cocoa producer. Its almost non-existent production in the early 1980s increased tenfold between 1986 and 2016, rising from just over 10,000 to more than 100,000 tonnes.2 This rise was closely related to settlement processes in the Peruvian Amazonia, where the crop is concentrated (Scott et al., 2016). Thus, there has been a dramatic expansion of the cropping area associated with settlement and deforestation processes. None of this can be understood without the exercise of specific agency capabilities by specific actors. In this sense, the Peruvian State’s colonisation plans and the intense development of coca leaf cultivation and drug trafficking are all crucial for understanding the growth in Peruvian cocoa production (Belaunde, 1959; Durand, 2005; McClintock, 1984; Montero, 1995). The analysis of Tocache is especially relevant for theory given its recency and the difficulties of settling there, which triggered strong dynamics of violence. Most academic analyses of local food production have focused on places with a long history and tradition in which conflict is governed by different criteria and discursive elements (Andersen, 2011; Bernzen and Braun, 2014; Ponte, 2009). However, this article will focus on how conventions and compromises operate in a boundary area where social accords are not exclusively based on tacit agreements and dialogue but also symbolic and physical violence (Boltanski, 2011; Jonck, 2015). In other words, this article focuses not only on justification processes but also on what happens ‘after justification’ and on how violent situations can coexist with discursive constructions with a relevant normative element (Thévenot, 2019; Wagner, 1999). In this sense, it aims to be an illustration of the statement that ‘experience is a mixture of violence and justification’ (Browne, 2014: 12, interview with Luc Boltanski). This study also has an empirical interest, as it allows settlement processes in different areas of Amazonia that have barely been explored to be analysed from the perspective of normative and moral economies (Arnold, 2001; Sayer, 2007). Given the above, the motivation behind this article is to study the set of values, embedded rationalities and tacit agreements that, in the case of Tocache, enable cocoa farmers to coordinate. For this purpose, a theoretical framework built around Convention Theory (CT) will be used. In particular, CT allows us to address agents’ multiple and occasionally contradictory rationalities and coordination devices (Batifoulier and Larquier, 2001; Eymard-Duvernay et al., 2006). In this context, this article will focus on a concept with growing significance in the conventionalist academic literature: compromises between conventions supported by different normative criteria and justified by different repertoires (Andersen, 2011; Bernzen and Braun, 2014; Ponte, 2009). Compromise will be specifically understood not only as an agreement between autonomous agents but also as a fundamental feature of power structures (Faulconbridge, 2012; Gordon, 2002). This article is organised as follows. The most relevant elements of its theoretical framework are introduced in the following section. Thus, key concepts of CT are introduced that allow 138 EPA: Economy and Space 56(1) an understanding of individual behaviours beyond an exclusively utilitarian approach. Also in this section, the relevance of normative issues in the shaping of agents’ subjectivities is stressed, even in situations of violence. The main elements of the research methodology are presented in the third section. Specifically, an integrated qualitative and quantitative approach methodologically influenced by grounded theories and ontologically underpinned by pragmatism and critical realism is presented (Bhaskar, 2009; Timonen et al., 2018).The fourth section analyses the historical context preceding the rise of cocoa cultivation characterised by relatively recent colonisation in addition to drug trafficking and coca leaf cultivation. This section will show the historical origins of both the situation of structural violence and the civic-market compromise which, as will be seen, will be hegemonic during the entire studied period. The fifth section analyses the main features of cocoa cropping, storage and marketing in Tocache and focuses on how agents’ coordination is normatively articulated in a postviolence situation. The conclusions are presented in the final section. Normative frameworks, conflicts and coordination in localised food production CT is a theoretical framework for approaching the plurality of agents’ rationalities and decisionmaking models (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2000, 2006). From the perspective of CT, agents’ rationalities have normative support in such a way that ethical and rational elements are interrelated. Thus, CT should be understood as a kind of moral economy in which individuals decide rationally but according to previous socially shared value and cognitive frameworks (Arnold, 2001; Sayer, 2007). The normative element not only limits (and, in some cases, penalises) some specific behaviours but also generates a set of generally accepted cognitive frameworks that allow anticipation and coordination (Eymard-Duvernay et al., 2006). In this sense, it is possible to speak about moral expectations, situated judgement and embedded rationalities in a bridge between the social sciences and moral philosophy (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2000; Eymard-Duvernay et al., 2006). To address the values and forms of agents’ embedded rationalities, it is necessary to understand what the seminal work by Boltanski and Thévenot (2006) defines as ‘worlds’, conceived as general social constructions addressed to regulate a broad set of social relations that place a differential value on objects and individuals. Table 1 presents some of their most important features. The different worlds not only provide a range of possibilities and limitations to agents’ actions but also provide discursive frameworks and materialities associated with specific orderings of the objects’ value (Bénatouïl, 1999). Moreover, they generate mechanisms for framing and resolving disputes by establishing equivalence criteria (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1999). In this sense, CT emphasises the relevance of coordination but also recognises the existence of repeated struggles among agents to maintain and improve their relative positions. Thus, CT frames the context in which not only coordination, but also conflict and power relations unfold. All these elements are essential for the daily operation and governance of territorially-based production systems such as Tocache. CT recognises that at any specific time and place, there could be multiple justifications for actions occurring simultaneously and generating plurarchies (Eymard-Duvernay et al., 2006). Plurarchies can appear in many domains. One of the best known is in the management of organisations (Cloutier and Langley, 2013; Oldenhof et al., 2014; Taupin, 2015). In this context, the governance of cooperatives often responds to complex logic based on multiple justifications (Denis et al., 2007). Accordingly, compatibility between the conventions of different worlds plays a core role and is necessary for the development of compromises. A compromise is understood as an agreement ‘to suspend a clash – a dispute involving more than one world – without settling it through recourse to a test in just one of the worlds’ (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006: 277). Thus, compromises are understood as the main way to reach legitimate agreements based on the distinct normative criteria of the different worlds, that is, on a modelling of the sense of justice (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1999). In the case of agrifood production, Coq-Huelva et al. 139 these compromises are especially relevant for the coordination of agents and, particularly, for explaining the role of farmers cooperatives (Andersen, 2011; Bernzen and Braun, 2014; Coq-Huelva et al., 2017). One of the criticisms traditionally made of CT is its inadequate problematisation of power dynamics (Barros and Michaud, 2019). Some of the seminal CT texts stress moving away ‘from constructions that, in the final analysis, tend to reduce all social relations to relations of power’ (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2000: 209). However, the conventionalist academic literature also recognises that criticism depends on specific people ‘characterised by different positions and chances’ (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2000: 211). Moreover, CT also advises that there are institutions and social devices with a disproportionate capacity to exercise or reject critiques (Boltanski, 2011). Critical sociology considers that coordination not only obscures social relations of domination but also acts in an essentially unconscious way according to prevalent forms of symbolic violence (Atkinson, 2019; Bénatouïl, 1999). This is reinforced in many analyses of post-colonial realities in which subalternity is often stressed (Chandra, 2015; Kothari, 2002). In these approaches, there are even doubts about some social groups being able to express their demands verbally (Spivak, 1988). In contrast, CT insists on the conscious element of these processes, on the importance of discursiveness under the forms of critiques and tests, and the centrality of the demands of justice (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1999). In other words, CT supports the principle that there is always a space to argue because agents need to make themselves heard (Thévenot, 2019). Simultaneously, it recognises that conflicts are not always resolved peacefully as a result of justice demands (Basaure, 2011). Thus, the dominant experience is a ‘mixture of violence and justification’ (Browne, 2014: 12, interview with Luc Boltanski). In CT, compromises not only have an important discursive dimension but also respond to micropower dynamics (Foucault, 2000, 2004). In this context, one of the functions of compromises is to provide agents with a certain ‘semantic security’ that makes it possible to frame discursivities and establish a set of legitimate testing systems (Boltanski, 2011). Compromises are always temporary, fragile and incomplete because they are supported by different higher common goods. However, their Table 1. Main features of the different worlds. Market Industrial Civic Domestic Inspiration Fame Higher common good Competition Efficiency and performance Pre-eminence of collectives Engenderment according to tradition The outpouring of inspiration Recognition by the public and generation of public opinion Repertoires of justification Monetary valuation, possession of expensive and rare objects Indicators, industrial tests, statistical probabilities Legal forms (rights, laws, decrees), social representation Good manners, proper behaviour Anxiety of creation, visionary states Reputation, high profile, recognition Test Market competitiveness Competence and reliability Equality and solidarity Trustworthiness Passion and enthusiasm Popularity Demonstrating proofs Monetary Measurable criteria, Statistics Formal and official Oral, exemplary, personally warranted Emotional involvement and expression Semiotic Source: Prepared by authors based on Boltanski and Thévenot (2006), Thévenot et al. (2000) and Taupin (2015). 140 EPA: Economy and Space 56(1) degree of temporariness and fragility is variable. In some cases, it is possible to speak of hegemonic compromises that promote shared and relatively stable representations of the common good for long periods (Gond et al., 2017). The fact that compromises tend to be maintained does not mean that they do not undergo important internal transformations. Thus, compromises can be strongly distorted by action (Salais, 1989). Finally, to be considered successful, a compromise must allow legitimate agreements to be reached to avoid situations of violence. This implies the generation of adequate spaces for discursivity, testing and critique (Boltanski, 2011). In contrast to the above, violence implies a break with the principles of equivalence. Actions are taken without having to be justified, that is, without having to respect historically generated and socially rooted agreements. Such actions are essentially sustained by strength tests (also called power struggles). The transition from a ‘regime of justification’ to a ‘regime of violence’ usually takes place without agents’ full awareness; it is possible to speak of a ‘slide’ (Boltanski, 2011, 2012). In any case, both regimes are intertwined (Basaure, 2011). A regime of justification can be based on the more or less latent threat of the exercise of violence. Thus, some types of communication can be promoted, others can be restricted and certain social groups could find it extremely difficult to express themselves (Boltanski, 2012). Similarly, to be maintained, a regime of violence depends on the mobilisation of discursive repertoires. The function of discursive constructions is not to make critiques aimed at triggering equivalence tests. On the contrary, they justify the exercise of violence, which is often considered a legitimate answer to situations considered outrageous (Jonck, 2015). In this sense, there is a degradation of the discursive repertoires, which become constructions with essentially propagandistic purposes. Tocache is a particularly interesting case for two main reasons. Firstly, because it is a locality and a set of agri-food activities that have emerged from a recent settlement process where, unlike in other cases, relative stability can be observed in the applied repertoires of justification (Andersen, 2011; Bernzen and Braun, 2014; Ponte, 2009). In this sense, questions such as the following can be formulated: what were the reference value systems in the Tocache settlement processes? Did they generate any compromises? Why were they so stable? To what extent were the normative frameworks and justification repertoires eroded as a result of the vagaries of settlement and the subsequent development processes? Secondly, in terms of power dynamics, Tocache has historically been located in a frontier position between the dominant peacetime regime of justification and the wartime regime of violence. This leads to another set of questions: what happened when structural situations of violence emerged? Was violence justified? What were the effects of the justification of violence? Can the justification of violence be understood as a general norm in armed conflicts? When did violence lose its social support? Methodology This research was conducted in the Province of Tocache, Department of San Martín, Peru (see map 1). In 2019, Peru produced 110,160 tonnes of cocoa on 204,410 ha of land. San Martín was the highest cocoa producing Department in the country (35,530 tonnes) and had the largest cropped area (65,090 ha) (Ministerio de Desarrollo Agrario y Riego, 2020). An integrated quantitative and qualitative methodology is used in this research. The first approach was made through the development, distribution and subsequent use of a questionnaire addressed to cocoa farmers. Primary data were gathered in five different districts of Tocache province (Polvora, Tocache, Uchiza, Shunte and Nuevo Progreso). A total of 469 farmers were surveyed. The produce of 194 of these was commercialised through intermediaries while 275 were cooperative members. In most cases, farmers were interviewed at cocoa farms and at cooperative sites. Prodatu II-DEVIDA (one of the organisations with which we collaborated in this research) helped us to organise ‘cocoa Coq-Huelva et al. 141 routes’ throughout the five districts of Tocache. We randomly selected some of the many possible routes in an attempt to cover all the different parts of the province, and carried out face-to-face surveys at farm gates and inside farms. This included all the surveyed farmers that did not belong to any cooperative as well as a relevant share of cooperative farmers. Notwithstanding, to increase the sample size, additional cooperative farmers were approached and interviewed at cooperative meetings Map 1. Department of San Martin and province of Tocache. 142 EPA: Economy and Space 56(1) and during cocoa deliveries. Some specific delivery days and events were selected for this as they involved a large number of farmers. Thus, we randomly approached some of these farmers, although never more than one third of those attending. The total population of the cooperatives in the five districts included 630 associated cocoa farmers. As a sample of 275 members were interviewed, 43.6% of the total population was contacted. Also subsequent calculations were made to ensure that a certain proportion among members of the different cooperatives had been maintained. The aim of the questionnaire was to quantify the set of objective features (economic, agricultural and socio-demographic) that influence the agents’ embedded rationalities. Within this set of elements, special attention was paid to the characterisation of the labour processes. The questionnaire also focused on farmers’ concrete decisions and on the way that these were influenced. We also asked farmers about their satisfaction and participation in the activities of cooperatives and other institutions (attendance at assemblies, participation in voting, interactions with management, etc.). As a result, an initial quantitative ‘snapshot’ was taken of the main elements of agricultural production and distribution. The questionnaire was reviewed by experts with experience in the study of local farmers and dealing with them. The qualitative phase of the analysis was based on 28 in-depth interviews with farmers, some of whom simultaneously held management positions in the different cooperatives. The interviews were organised to cover five of the area’s six existing cooperatives. Due to the relevance of historical factors, the outline of the interviews had a certain life-story approach and asked, for example, about the farmers’ social backgrounds, their places of origin (or those of their families), the history of settlement in the area and education levels. Special emphasis was given to the crops farmers had grown throughout their lives, which allowed a series of questions to be asked about their relationships with coca leaf cultivation. An ontologically pragmatic approach was used in the conception and development of this research, in the qualitative phase, in particular. This approach followed the guidelines of Critical Realism (Bhaskar, 2009). More precisely, we used ‘a perspective that adheres to the existence of one reality that is open, fluid, and shaped how people interpret (construct meaning) in it. . ..(it) has the potential to navigate between the positivist and radical constructivist perspectives’ (Timonen et al., 2018). This pragmatic element coincides with the theoretical framework used as CT is considered to be a part of pragmatic sociology (Bénatouïl, 1999; Blokker and Brighenti, 2011). Specifically, in the case of the interviews, the critical realistic approach helped to establish the initial questions, which were formulated in a very general way and left a wide margin of response. The general idea was to deepen the understanding of how the agents’ subjectivities had been shaped historically by enquiring into the historical process that could explain the generation of discourses and dominant cognitive frameworks. In this framework, although there was a formal script, interviews had a slight level of structuring that gave priority to dialogue generation. Furthermore, although the research team had extensive experience in the analysis of agricultural production, an effort was made to conceal this knowledge. Nevertheless, the team’s theoretical background was relevant when it came to asking questions that were not initially foreseen. At no time were direct or indirect questions asked about the ‘worlds’ or other CT concepts but whenever any related aspects arose, these topics were further pursued. Similarly, an attempt was made to understand what really happened. In this sense, following the principles of Grounded Theory (Qureshi and Ünlü, 2020), the interviews were coded in three stages: open and substantive (using the interviewees’ own expressions and concepts); focused or selective (where special emphasis is placed on the development of codes in the topics considered to be of greater theoretical importance) and theoretical (where the previously identified codes are related to the theoretical basis of the research). So, although the research design was not based on theory, theories were intensively used in the last phase of the research, when the data and codes were related to the key concepts of CT: worlds, justifications, compromises, critiques, tests, etc. Coq-Huelva et al. 143 More precise information was also required about some particular aspects (especially about the historical evolution of the area). In some cases, these data were obtained from an analysis of statistical sources, specifically the Agricultural Censuses of 1994 and 2012 and the Statistical Yearbooks of Agricultural Production, 2005 to 2018. Various official documents were also used, especially those referring to the reality of drug trafficking and the activity of armed groups, for example, the various reports prepared by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Comisión para la Verdad y la Reconciliación, CVR). It should be stressed that throughout the whole of the research, the intention was to deepen not only the analysis of the case study but also the existing theoretical insights (Timonen et al., 2018). This openness to theory-building based on agents’ experience has generated some unexpected results and theoretical developments (stability of hegemonic compromise or strong processes of justification of violence), which are particularly emphasised in this article. The social construction of cocoa in the Peruvian Amazonia: The case of Tocache, San Martín Department Settlement, drug trafficking and guerrillas The settlement of Tocache began in the 1960s with the arrival of colonists from different parts of Peru, particularly from the highlands (Morel, 2014). Amazonia was socially and politically constructed as a homogeneous, empty region with ‘immense’ unexploited resources (Figallo and Vergara, 2014).3 The settlement process not only had a strong spontaneous component but also responded to a political design that saw Amazonia as the solution to population growth and insufficient food production in Peru (Belaunde, 1959; Dourojeanni, 1976). Settlement was also favoured at the end of the 1960s by Agrarian Reform processes that steered part of the landless peasant population towards Amazonia. In terms of CT (see Table 1), this resulted in a settlement project where civic values (related to food sovereignty, land ownership distribution and the reversal of poverty and social precariousness) were particularly relevant (Belaunde, 1959; Morel, 2014). However, leaving aside the State’s actions, settlement would not have been possible without individuals with specific objectives, interests and rationalities. The colonists’ desire to become rich was very important. Thus, considering CT, from the very beginning, the market world and its associated (monetary) repertoires of justification were acutely relevant. Also, market values and embedded rationalities were strengthened by continuous references to Amazonia’s immense unexploited resources. Nevertheless, turning them into economic value was not easy. Amazonia was an unknown environment in climate and natural terms, a place where the agronomic adaptation of crops and, in particular, the management of soil depletion problems were particularly difficult (Peña-Venegas and Cardona, 2010). The introduction of agricultural produce into foreign markets was also a challenge. Therefore, the settlement project was based on a foundational compromise between civic and market conventions. The problems with fulfilling the expectations of civic (successful colonisation process with effective recognition of social rights) and market worth (an increase in monetary rents and consumption levels) explain why approximately half the original settlers had given up and left Tocache by the 1970s (Dourojeanni, 1976: 6). In summary, the Peruvian State was deeply involved in the settlement process in Amazonia, even though this process cannot be understood without the active participation of the settlers. In this context, in line with CT, shared cognitive frameworks and ‘common sense’ were generated that were associated with a set of embedded rationalities in the form of a civic-market compromise (Andersen, 2011; Bernzen and Braun, 2014; Boltanski and Thévenot, 1999; Ponte, 2009). This stabilised the settlement process and was able to shape emerging settler ‘subjectivities’ (Dean, 1999; Foucault, 2000, 2004). 144 EPA: Economy and Space 56(1) However, from the mid-1970s onwards, changes in global food relations implied new demands and a downturn in agricultural prices, which substantially worsened the living conditions of the settlers (Durand, 2005; McClintock, 1984). Following CT, this is related to mounting critiques and, therefore, to problems of justification in both the civic and market worlds (Patriotta et al., 2011; Réberioux et al., 2001; Reinecke et al., 2017). Was the State capable of guaranteeing the collective interests of all the inhabitants in the newly-settled areas? Did it have sufficient instruments to successfully address structural poverty? Could the settlement process be sustained under these conditions? It should be noted that the settlers, a group with a strong tradition of subalternity due to their predominantly peasant origins, were to speak out and develop their own strong critiques (Spivak, 1988; Thévenot, 2019). However, the existing institutions did not care (symbolic violence) or were unable to answer them, thus generating a situation that was considered outrageous. This, in turn, generated problems of State legitimacy, as the State was considered to have abandoned the settlers (Allen, 2011; Barros and Michaud, 2019; Comisión de la Verdad y la Reconciliación [CVR], 2003; Jonck, 2015). In this context, illegal actions such as coca leaf cropping began to spread. These actions can be regarded as forms of peasant defiance in order to make themselves heard (Thévenot, 2019). But they constituted weak forms of violence. Coca had been present in the area since the beginning of the settlement process and even before (Van Dun, 2016). At first, it was related to the habits of migrants who consumed coca leaves either by chewing them or as an infusion. However, from the beginning, part of the production was channelled into illegal trafficking. Also, the situation changed dramatically around the mid-1970s. In the context of falling agricultural prices, coca leaf prices boomed thanks to strong international demand and the appearance of Colombian and Mexican cartels (Montero, 1995). Thus, in terms of CT, the expansion of coca cultivation can be understood as the result, firstly, of the erosion of the original civic-market compromise and, secondly, of the first and still incipient descent from a regime of justification into a regime of violence. In this context, coca created an illicit but simultaneously complex and highly profitable commodity chain that generated employment in the form of manufacturers of coca paste base, gatherers (acopiadores) and traffickers (traqueteros), for example (Van Dun, 2016). In this sense, considering CT, the expansion of coca leaf cultivation restored market worth. Also, some civic repertoires were developed around coca leaf cropping (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2006). Thus, settlers were deeply involved in the constitution of the first coca growers’ unions, which claimed to be indispensable interlocutors with the State. The emergence of these unions led to the organisation of mass demonstrations and even a successful general strike, among other things (CVR, 2003). Given the confluence of domestic economic and political interests and the generation of discourse by the agents, there was a certain likelihood that the Peruvian State would yield or at least look the other way. Initially, its reaction was somewhat hesitant (CVR, 2003). However, the expansion of coca cultivation resulted in increasing international pressure. This led to an intensification of existing controls, which resulted in enormous amounts of coca being seized and crops burnt. In other words, the State stepped up its exercise of the monopoly of violence and this, given the above-mentioned critiques, was particularly delegitimised. In addition, the Peruvian State’s effective power in Amazonia was limited. All this hastened the descent into violence (Boltanski, 2011, 2012; Jonck, 2015). Following CT, the problems were exacerbated by the development of repertoires of justification of coca leaf cropping following market (higher price for coca) and civic (the ability to maintain the community) criteria. These had important grammar problems due to the very nature of an illicit crop with serious health effects. Namely, the civic-market compromise was distorted practically beyond recognition (Salais, 1989). However, this distorted compromise acted fundamentally as a form of justification for non-compliance with the law and subsequent ‘protection’ from the State’s eradication actions. In other words, it acted as a repertoire that justified violence, which is to say, as a repertoire not of justification (since it was not capable of establishing any viable social equivalence) but of propaganda (Boltanski, 2011; Jonck, 2015; Wagner, 1999). Coq-Huelva et al. 151 Declaration of conflicting interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by the research project of the Universidad del Pacífico Supply Chain and Marketing of Peruvian and Ecuadorian Amazon Cocoa: Cooperatives vs. Intermediaries. ORCID iD Daniel Coq-Huelva https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1710-4995 Notes 1. Source: Faostat. 2. Source: Faostat. 3. This obviously does not mean that the area was ‘empty’. There were a number of indigenous settlers prior to the colonisation process, as well as a long history of coexistence, miscegenation and violence between populations with different origins in colonial and post-colonial social contexts that dated back to the 16th and 17th centuries. That said, it can be stated that currently there is no historical memory of previous indigenous settlers, so these people have little relevance in defining the current identity of the area’s inhabitants (Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana, 2008). 4. Juan, male, 55–65 years old, cocoa and banana farmer, former president of one of the cooperatives, has lived in the area all his life and has vivid memories of times of armed conflict. 5. Source: Faostat. 6. Rosa, female, 60–70 years old, cocoa, banana and palm oil farmer, head of one of the top-tier cooperatives in the area. 7. 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