Criminal Choices for Precarious Livelihoods: Antiquities Looting by Cannabis Cultivators in Poland, Russia and Ukraine

This study explores poly-criminality, through intersections between extraction and trafficking of cultural goods and production and trafficking of psychotropic substances, in eastern Europe. It undertakes netnographic analysis of online forums of cannabis-cultivators and artefact-hunters in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, presenting open-source data from 342 cannabis-cultivators, at least 173 of whom also hunted for artefacts, and 85 artefact-hunters, at least 6 of whom also cultivated cannabis.Economic insecurity, among other factors, contributes to the choice to combine artefact-hunting and cannabis-cultivation, alongside other legal and criminal enterprises, in order to maintain a precarious livelihood. Overlapping factors, including locations for criminal activity and processes of artefact-hunting and cannabis-cultivation, contribute not only to maintenance and integration of dual enterprises, but also to mutual disruption of rival enterprises. Mutual disruption is also driven by mutual antipathy between artefact-hunters and cannabis-cultivators on the basis of each’s perception of the other’s social harm. Depletion of cultural assets may drive an initial foray into or increased dependence upon production of cannabis, while a reduction in access to markets for cannabis may drive an initial foray into or increased dependence upon extraction of cultural assets. Both may occur simultaneously, further intensifying resource depletion, economic insecurity, and criminal competition.