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In this book, a make-believe cocaine museum becomes a vantage point from which to assess the lives of Afro-Colombian gold miners drawn into the dangerous world of cocaine production in the rain forest of Colombia's Pacific Coast. Although modeled on the famous Gold Museum in Colombia's central bank, the Banco de la República, Taussig's museum is also a parody aimed at the museum's failure to acknowledge the African slaves who mined the country's wealth for almost four hundred years. Combining natural history with political history in a filmic, montage style, Taussig deploys the show-and-tell modality of a museum to engage with the inner life of heat, rain, stone, and swamp, no less than with the life of gold and cocaine. This effort to find a poetry of words becoming things is brought to a head by the explosive qualities of those sublime fetishes of evil beauty, gold and cocaine. At its core, Taussig's museum is about the lure of forbidden things, charged substances that transgress moral codes, the distinctions we use to make sense of the world, and above all the conventional way we write stories.

gold mines --- economics --- drugs --- Economics --- Colombia --- Cocaine industry --- Drug traffic --- Gold mines and mining --- Indians of South America --- Indians, Treatment of --- Slavery --- Economic conditions. --- Social conditions. --- History. --- Santa María (Cauca, Colombia) --- Drug dealing --- Drug production, Illicit --- Drug smuggling --- Drug trade, Illicit --- Drug trafficking --- Drugs --- Illicit drug production --- Illicit drug trade --- Narcotic trade --- Narcotic traffic --- Narcotic trafficking --- Smuggling of drugs --- Smuggling of narcotics --- Traffic, Drug --- Trafficking in drugs --- Trafficking in narcotics --- Gold discoveries --- Gold extraction (Mining) --- Gold fields --- Gold mining --- Gold rush --- Gold rushes --- Goldfields --- Goldmining --- Goldrush --- Goldrushes --- Sites, Gold mining --- Abolition of slavery --- Antislavery --- Enslavement --- Mui tsai --- Ownership of slaves --- Servitude --- Slave keeping --- Slave system --- Slaveholding --- Thralldom --- American aborigines --- American Indians --- Indigenous peoples --- Prices and sale --- Ethnology --- Drug abuse and crime --- Narco-terrorism --- Mines and mineral resources --- Crimes against humanity --- Serfdom --- Slaveholders --- Slaves --- Indians --- Government relations --- Economic conditions --- Social conditions --- History --- Santa María (Cauca, Colombia) --- Taussig, Michael --- Cocaine industry - Colombia - Santa María (Cauca) --- Drug traffic - Colombia - Santa María (Cauca) --- Gold mines and mining - Colombia - Santa María (Cauca) --- Indians of South America - Colombia - Santa María (Cauca) - Economic conditions --- Indians of South America - Colombia - Santa María (Cauca) - Social conditions --- Indians, Treatment of - Colombia - Santa María (Cauca) --- Slavery - Colombia - Santa María (Cauca) - History --- Santa María (Cauca, Colombia) - Economic conditions --- Santa María (Cauca, Colombia) - Social conditions --- gold museum, pacific coast, colombia, miners, cocaine, rain forest, slavery, slaves, labor, colonialism, transgression, forbidden, afro-colombian, banco de la republica, race, racism, exploitation, capitalism, wealth, politics, history, fetish, corruption, indigenous, native, santa maraia, cauca, mines, drug traffic, nonfiction. --- Santa Maria (Cauca, Colombia)