Land, gender and labor in antinarcotic policies: voluntary substitution of illegalized coca crops and gender inequalities in rural Colombia

While consistent evidence proves that rural women derive important socio-economic benefits from participating in the coca value chain, the extent to which drug economies and antinarcotic policies challenge or reproduce structures of gendered exclusion, particularly in relation to land and labor, remains unclear. This paper examines the intersection of gender, land access disparities, and labor dynamics within coca-producing units, drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in two major coca-producing regions in Colombia. By unpacking these interactions, we contribute a gendered lens to the political ecologies of coca production and antinarcotic policies.