Women surviving in and out of prison in Quito, Ecuador: weaving alternative lives through the sale of drugs

This investigation focuses on women’s constrained exercise of agency, gained through the sale of drugs in Quito, Ecuador. The global surge in female incarceration through the ‘80’s and ‘90’s produced a myriad of studies that attempted to explain their participation in the drug world. However, only recent publications have focused on understanding this phenomenon outside of a structuralist approach. In a context of a failed drug war and re-drawing of anti-drug policies, it is important to understand why women continue dealing drugs after incarceration, outside of the ‘economic necessity’ discourse. I argue that, in a multiply constrained context, the ten Ecuadorian women I interviewed did not only seek to sustain their children through drug dealing, but also to define themselves outside of motherhood. The sale of drugs allowed them to negotiate with the available state and culturally imposed narratives to attain wellbeing. This study is based on ethnographic fieldwork that took place from July to September 2015 in Quito and surrounding areas of Ecuador. I conducted 35 semi-structured interviews and participant observation during my stay. I conclude that women’s lived experiences reveal their resistance to the state imposed exclusion from leading purposeful lives. If the state and society continue avoiding women’s assertive (and not only victimizing) narratives explaining their incursion into drug dealing, any future changes in penal policy (as they relate to drugs and “reinsertion”) will fail to curb the incarceration of women on minor drug offenses