Necropolitics and Resistance: The Autodefensa Movement

Abstract

Resistance does not escape from death, but excites necropolitics. The question of death and resistance is explored through autodefensa groups that operate in Apatzingán, groups that initially emerged to overthrow organized crime only later to be accused of collaborating with them. Far from outside, the autodefensas operate amid death, regulating violence and operating immanently to the death world. Autodefensas wrest back control of Apatzingán from organized crime by controlling death-related circulations, while also operating in ever-greater proximity to death. Resistance, then, is not in opposition to the death world, but is central to understanding its dynamism. Autodefensas are forced into a prolonged exposure to violence, increasingly coming-into-relation with death as they coordinate their actions, as they confront organized crime. Yet, it is this proximity to violence that sees living death become evermore-precarious, that sees the growing criminality of the movement.