Rethinking Smuggling in the 21st Century

Abstract

In recent decades, work on smuggling and the role of organised crime groups in smuggling economies has developed in a variety of adjacent fields, from criminology to political science, anthropology and borderland studies to geography and economics. On the basis of the recently published “Routledge Handbook of Smuggling”, this panel reflects on recent scholarship within these fields, and how these often siloed areas of knowledge can speak to each other more effectively. The panel asks how recent scholarship has expanded our understanding of smuggling, and what it tells us of the trends and trajectories of smuggling in the 21st century. Here, the panel relies on comparative insights, drawing on case studies from India to Sierra Leone, comparing commodities from cigarettes to areca nuts and actors from migrant smugglers to rebel groups. The question it seeks to answer is how smuggling studies needs to advance in order to improve and develop our understanding of a dynamic and politicised concept.

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