Extortion is the most common of crimes in Central America today and the most despised. As a growing criminal phenomenon, it exemplifies trends prevalent across post–Cold War Latin America as well as other parts of the world. In many societies, the “democratic wave” and the triumph of market fundamentalism has been accompanied by deepening uncertainty: the state has become criminal, criminals counterfeit the state. For those caught in the middle, distinguishing between predator and protector is often impossible. Proliferating protection rackets are both a symptom of and answer to collective anxieties over the terms of everyday survival and the difficulty of determining just who is in charge. This essay is an ethnography of extorted life, mapping the expanding geographies of extortion in postwar Guatemala to illuminate how this cold-blooded business organizes life at the most intimate of scales.

中文翻译：

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被勒索的生活：危地马拉城的保护球拍

勒索是当今中美洲最常见的犯罪行为，也是最受鄙视的。作为一种日益严重的犯罪现象，它体现了冷战后拉丁美洲以及世界其他地区普遍存在的趋势。在许多社会中，“民主浪潮”和市场原教旨主义的胜利伴随着不断加深的不确定性：国家变成了犯罪分子，犯罪分子伪造了国家。对于那些夹在中间的人来说，通常不可能区分捕食者和保护者。激增的保护球既是对日常生存条件以及确定谁负责的困难的集体焦虑的症状和答案。这篇文章是关于被勒索的生活的民族志，