Introduction to the Special Section: Latin American Voices on Illegal and Marginally Legal Practices at Borders

I present here selected articles that originated from the Simposio de antropología “entre lo legal y lo illegal” in Monterrey, Mexico, November 2019. These articles focus on Latin American borders: the U.S.-Mexico border, the Brazil-Paraguay border, and the Argentina-Bolivia border. These Latin American scholars resist the top-down agenda of seeing threat in everything that has been illegalized, because as they show, many smuggled goods are normalized and present few risks and many benefits to civilians. Yet at the same time, they draw attention to the terrible levels of criminal and state violence that do occur around intensely illegalized commodities. They do not offer a solution, but they do offer insights for progress on this crucial question.