The criminal governance of tourism: extortion and intimacy in Medellín

In the past decade, Colombia experienced a surge in tourism. The sector often emerged in weak institutional and legal settings, leaving space for informal and haphazard processes to surface, sometimes generating dominance and inequity. It is therefore critical to look closely at these developments when addressing issues involving tourism, informality and violence. In this article, I provide a picture of the political economy of tourism and violence in Medellín, the second city of the country. I examine how criminal actors and tourism entrepreneurs share a territory, shedding light on the extortion of tour guides, street artists and business owners in some of Medellin’s barrios populares. The main objective is to demonstrate how intimate relations - kin, friends, long-term acquaintances – impact what I consider as the criminal governance of tourism