5 - Collective Vigilantism

Summary

This chapter analyzes two cases of collective vigilantism in Michoacán, Mexico, to show why and how variation in the local political economies in which victims operate influences their strategies of resistance to criminal extortion. I first examine a case of resistance in the avocado sector where victims operated in an encompassing political economy with a single robust sectoral organization to coordinate among themselves and between them and governing authorities. This enabled avocado sector victims to pursue centralized collective vigilantism wherein victims carried out a range of extralegal practices closely coordinated by a group of leaders. By contrast, in a case of resistance in the berry sector, victims operated in a segmented political economy with competing sectoral organizations that precluded victims’ abilities to coordinate with each other as part of a unified self-defense group or with local governing authorities. This led to decentralized collective vigilantism in which multiple self-defense groups engaged in a range of both complementary and contradictory practices against criminals and simultaneously jockeyed against each other for power and resources.