Alex Diamond

Assistant Professor

Sociology

Interests: Political Sociology; Drugs and Society; Criminology; Peace, War, and Social Conflict; Ethnography.

alexander.diamond@stonybrook.edu

Visit Dr. Alex Diamond's Person Website

Bio:

As ethnographer, photographer, and documentary filmmaker, I focus on understanding the connections between drugs, state policy, violence, and economic transformation, as carried out through people’s everyday experiences. My first book, Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia's Peace Laboratory describes a landmark peace process from the perspective of farmers hoping to drive a regional transition from violence to peace, guerrilla rule to state authority, and coca to legal agriculture. I am currently writing a book titled High Stakes: Cannabis, Crime, Capitalism, and Politics, that tells the stories of those who grow, sell, and advocate for cannabis to describe how cannabis has been legalized and how (legal and illegal) weed economies have reconfigured in response.

Select Works:

Book

Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia's Peace Laboratory. 2026. University of Chicago Press.

Translated into Spanish as ¿Quién gobierna a los excluidos? El sustento rural más allá de la coca en el Laboratorio de Paz de Colombia. 2026. Universidad del Rosario Press.

Articles

“On the Road to State Power: State Formation through Relationship Building in Rural Colombia.” 2025. American Journal of Sociology

“‘The State is Coming’: The Emotional Content of State Formation through a Colombian Coca Substitution Program.” 2024. Social Problems.

“The Narrative Construction of State (Il)Legitimacy in Colombia’s Peace Laboratory.” 2023. Sociological Forum.

“Pork Belly Politics: The Moral and Instrumental Reasons Clients Donate to Patrons in a Rural Colombian Mayoral Election.” 2021. Qualitative Sociology.