Trocheros

Abstract

TROCHEROS: Individuals who guide or carry goods for others across trochas, the informal, unregulated paths used to bypass official crossings along borders, most notably between Venezuela and Colombia. The role is situational rather than fixed: people take it up temporarily or recurrently in response to economic collapse, food shortages, and inconsistent border enforcement, and it may or may not become a stable livelihood. Analytically distinct from “smuggler,” the term denotes actors embedded in local moral and relational economies rather than criminal networks. Trocheros sustain cross-border survival economies, enable humanitarian flows, and expose the selective, situational nature of state authority — tolerated, taxed, or repressed depending on shifting political conditions.