Narcotecture

Abstract

The term narcotecture often refers to grand mansions built with drug money. A blend of the words “narcotics” and “architecture,” the portmanteau evokes florid gated communities in Afghanistan, Africa, and the Americas. Yet, this interest in ostentation strips narcotecture of full analytical purchase. To expand the term's significance, this article samples how the global drug trade interacts every day with the War on Drugs at the level of built environments. This interaction makes flashy mansions, to be sure, but also airplane hangars and shipping containers, security booths and watch towers, drop sites and crack houses—not to mention prisons, hospitals, and barracks. This broader notion of narcotecture is organized by the tactical manipulation of space pursued in ways that self-consciously attempt to avoid detection. This article's central claim is that narcotecture is not simply a form of conspicuous consumption but more importantly a mode of inconspicuous construction.