Organizing against organized crime: The entanglement of drug trafficking, housing financialization, and urban renewal in Barcelona

Current analysis of organized crime in the urban space focuses either on its social or spatial embeddedness. As an alternative, this article develops a socio-spatial perspective that recognizes and situates the lived experience of organized crime within urban transformation processes. I developed this perspective by building on ethnographic data about drug trafficking in Barcelona's El Raval, which I examine through the lens of the residents. I focus specifically on the interpretative framework of the "narco-especulació" which links the expansion of the narcopisos phenomenon to rampant speculative practices of real-estate-investors and city-led urban regeneration processes. I argue that this framework articulates a critique of urban governance, underscoring the dispossession of residents' social control, a weakened sense of place, and the fragmentation of community relationships. I also show how this framework can foster collective resistance strategies that express community agency against organized crime while disrupting the ongoing process of urban transformation and public management.