When I Wear My Alligator Boots examines how the lives of dispossessed men and women are affected by the rise of narco-trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border. In particular, the book explores a crucial tension at the heart of the “war on drugs”: that despite the violence and suffering brought on by drug cartels, narco-trafficking represents one of the few promises of upward mobility for the rural poor in Mexico’s north as well as a powerful source of cultural meanings and local prestige.

The traces of the drug trade are everywhere in the borderlands: from gang violence in cities and drug addiction in rural villages, to the vibrant folklore popularized in the narco-corridos of Norteña music and the icon of Jesús Malverde, the “patron saint” of narcos, tucked beneath the shirts of local people. In When I Wear My Alligator Boots, the author explores the everyday reality of the drug trade by living alongside its low-level workers: those living at the edges of the violence generated by the militarization of “the war on drugs.” Rather than telling the story of the powerful cartel leaders, the book focuses on the women who occasionally make their sandwiches, the low-level businessmen who launder their money, the addicts who consume their products, the mules who carry their money and drugs through borders, and the men and women who serve out the prison sentences when the operations of their bosses go awry.

Shaylih Muehlmann is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Canada Research Chair in Language, Culture and the Environment at the University of British Columbia.