Profiting from Pablo - Victimhood, Memory, and Consumerism
KATJA FRANKO, DAVID R. GOYESThe profiting referred to in the title includes profits made by the global entertainment industry from the immense popularity of narco-series, as well as those made by Medellín’s tourism industry, which offers Escobar-themed tours, souvenirs, and collectibles, as well as less visible profits made by political and social actors who engage in the global mythmaking surrounding Escobar. The book offers a critique of how the global market economy allows unequal narrative power to those engaged in the processes of collective memory construction. Through interviews with those directly affected by drug violence, we show that these cultural forces have immediate symbolic and material consequences. Powerful commercial actors, such as Netflix, have turned one of the main perpetrators of the violence into a global icon. Victims of drug violence, on the other hand, not only face the possibility of their losses being consigned to oblivion, but are also excluded from cosmopolitan notions of justice and struggle against impunity.