States of Camouflage
Journal: Cultural Anthropology
Year: 2015

Focusing on a story of former firefighters who used a counterfeit rescue vehicle to perform a false emergency as a cover-up for drug trafficking in the tri-border area of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, this article engages the concept of camouflage to intervene in anthropological discussions on statecraft. The article explores how drug traffickers—but also gendarmes, prefects, and customs officers, who help smugglers by accepting bribes—use the camouflage of legitimate political authority to e