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‘Displacement’ before Displacement: Time, Place and the Case of Rural Urabá

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2015

MATEJA CELESTINA
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Abstract

Addressing the case of a community from rural Urabá, Colombia, this article focuses on the temporality of population displacement and asks: when does the ‘clock’ of displacement start? Drawing upon an in-depth ethnographic fieldwork it challenges the state driven narrative that displacement can be understood from the moment one leaves their residence and advances the argument that displacement is more than just physical relocation. By engaging with the broader social, political and economic context in which displacement occurred and bringing local voices to the fore, this article demonstrates how the experience of violence engendered a sense of displacement before residents actually left.

Spanish abstract

Refiriéndose al caso de una comunidad de la rural Urabá, Colombia, este artículo se centra en la temporalidad del desplazamiento poblacional y se pregunta: ¿Cuándo empieza el ‘reloj’ del desplazamiento? Partiendo de un trabajo de campo etnográfico a profundidad se desafía la narrativa estatal de que el desplazamiento se puede entender desde el momento en que uno deja su residencia y adelanta el argumento de que el desplazamiento es más que una relocalización física. Al relacionar el contexto social, político y económico más amplio en el que el desplazamiento ocurre y poner en relieve a las voces locales, este artículo demuestra cómo la experiencia de violencia engendró una sensación de desplazamiento antes de que los residentes partieran de hecho.

Portuguese abstract

Abordando o caso de uma comunidade da área rural de Urabá, Colômbia, este artigo foca na temporalidade do desalojamento populacional e pergunta: quando se inicia o processo de desalojamento? Com base em um trabalho de campo etnográfico aprofundado, o artigo desafia a narrativa proclamada pelo Estado de que o desalojamento define-se a partir do momento no qual uma pessoa deixa sua residência. Desenvolve-se, assim, o argumento de que desalojamento é mais do que apenas uma realocação física. Levando em consideração os contextos sociais, políticos e econômicos mais amplos nos quais os desalojamentos ocorreram e dando destaque às vozes locais, este artigo demonstra como a exposição à violência gera uma sensação de desalojamento antes mesmo que os residentes deixem suas casas.

Keywords

displacementsense of placetemporalityIDPsUrabáColombiadesplazamientosensación de lugartemporalidadPIDsUrabáColombiadesalojamentosensación de lugartemporalidadPIDsUrabáColômbia
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , May 2016 , pp. 367 - 390
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 In order to protect people's anonymity their names have been changed or on some occasions omitted completely. Interviews took place at different points between June 2011 and December 2011 and between June 2012 and September 2012.

2 Oslender, Ulrich, ‘Another History of Violence. The Production of “Geographies of Terror” in Colombia's Pacific Coast Region’, Latin American Perspectives, 35 (2008), pp. 77–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso, ‘Introduction’, in Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso (eds.), Senses of Place (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1996), p. 10.

4 María Clemencia Ramírez, ‘Maintaining Democracy in Colombia through Political Exclusion, States of Exception, Counterinsurgency, and Dirty War’, in Enrique Desmond Arias and Daniel Goldstein (eds.), Violent Democracies in Latin America (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), pp. 84–107. Some other examples of literature which considers a long-term approach to studying violence and people's experiences are Arturo Escobar, Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008); Mary Roldán, ‘“Cambio de Armas” Negotiating Alternatives to Violence in the Oriente Antioqueño’, in Virginia Marie Bouvier (ed.), Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2009), pp. 277–94; Oslender, ‘Another History of Violence’.

5 Molly Todd, Beyond Displacement: Campesinos, Refugees, and Collective Action in the Salvadoran Civil War (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010).

6 Stephen Lubkemann, Culture in Chaos. An Anthropology of the Social Condition of War (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2008).

7 I recognise that not everyone has left Urabá and that some people stayed there despite violence. Since I was unable to interview anyone who stayed behind, I decided to retract their perspectives through the lens of those who had moved.

8 The guerrilla groups were also responsible for violence and displacement. However, the focus here is on the experiences and perceptions of my interviewees. Since they were all leftists, none of my interviewees spoke about the violence and displacement generated by the guerrillas.

9 Zoe Bray, ‘Ethnographic Approaches’, in Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating (eds.), Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 296–315.

10 Longue durée is a term predominately found in history. It refers to the long-term view and contrasts it to episodic history (Braudel, Fernand and Wallerstein, Immanuel, ‘History and the Social Sciences: The Longue Durée’, Review, 32: 2 (2009), pp. 171–203Google Scholar). In this article it is used in a similar manner to refer to studies which consider a long-term timeframe in their analyses of conflict and people's experiences.

11 Malkki, Liisa, ‘Refugees and Exile: From “Refugee Studies” to the National Order of Things’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 24 (1995), pp. 495–523CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 EPICA and CHRLA, ‘The Communities of Population in Resistance in Guatemala’, Social Justice, 20: 3/4 (1993), pp. 143–62Google Scholar.

13 Todd, Beyond Displacement.

14 Roldán, ‘Cambio de Armas’. For other studies exploring the experiences of peace communities, see Christopher Mitchell and Sara Ramírez, ‘Local Peace Communities in Colombia. An Initial Comparison of Three Cases’, in Virginia Marie Bouvier (ed.), Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2009), pp. 245–70; and Javier Moncayo, ‘Civil Resistance to War in the Middle Magdalena Valley’, Virginia Marie Bouvier (ed.), Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2009), pp. 271–6.

15 John Agnew, Place and Politics: The Geographical Mediation of State and Society (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1987).

16 Doreen Massey, Space, Place and Gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994); Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996); David Harvey, ‘Class Relations and Social Justice’, in Michael Keith and Steve Pile (eds.), Place and the Politics of Identity (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 41–66.

17 Turton, David, ‘The Meaning of Place in a World of Movement: Lessons from Long-Term Field Research in Southern Ethiopia’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 18: 3 (2005), pp. 258–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miriam Khan, ‘Your Place and Mine: Sharing Emotional Landscapes in Wamira, Papua New Guinea’, in Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso (eds.), Senses of Place (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1996), pp. 167–96.

18 Tobias Kelly, ‘Returning to Palestine: Confinement and Displacement under Israeli Occupation’, in Stef Jansen and Staffan Löfving (eds.), Struggles for Home: Violence, Hope, and the Movement of People (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009), p. 26.

19 Lubkemann, Culture in Chaos, p. 192.

20 Adrienne Rich, ‘Notes toward a Politics of Location’, in Adrienne Rich (ed.), Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose, 1979–1985 (New York: Norton, 1986), pp. 212.

21 Carlos Miguel Ortiz Sarmiento, Urabá: pulsiones de vida y desafíos de muerte (Medellín: La Carreta Social 2007), p. 44.

22 Clara Ínes García de la Torre and Clara Ínes Aramburo Siegert, Geografías de la guerra, el poder y la resistencia. Oriente y Urabá antioqueños 1990–2008 (Medellín: Universidad de Antioquia, 2011), p. 315.

23 Ibid.

24 Mary Roldán, Blood and Fire. L a Violencia in Antioquia, Colombia, 1946–1953 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 195.

25 Ibid., p. 221.

26 Claudia Steiner, ‘Héroes y banano en el golfo de Urabá: la construcción de una frontera conflictiva’, in Silva Renán (ed.), Territorios, regiones, sociedades (Bogotá: Universidad del Valle; Cerec, 1994), pp. 137–52; Ortiz Sarmiento, Urabá: pulsiones de vida.

27 Roldán, Blood and Fire, p. 171.

28 Andrés Fernando Suárez, Identidades políticas y exterminio recíproco. Masacres y guerra en Urabá 1991–2001 (Medellín: La Carreta Editores; Instituto de Estudios Políticos Internacionales IEPRI, 2007).

29 Uribe, Urabá: ¿Región o territorio?

30 Marcelo Bucheli, Bananas and Businesses. The United Fruit Company in Colombia, 1899–2000 (New York: New York University Press, 2005).

31 Steiner, Héroes y banano.

32 Jenny Pearce, Colombia. Inside the Labyrinth (London: Latin America Bureau Limited, 1990).

33 Leah Anne Carroll, Violent Democratization. Social Movements, Elites, and Politics in Colombia's Rural War Zones, 1984–2008 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press), pp. 62–5.

34 The first instance of a guerrilla presence in Urabá was recorded in 1950 and the period of La Violencia. The governor of Antioquia sent a military official on an expedition to assess the region's ‘subversive’ presence. The latter reported a lack of authority from Antioquia, lack of civilisation, and the immoral character of the inhabitants. As a response, the governor declared Urabá a militarised zone and handed its management over to the military. Roldán, Mary, ‘Violencia, colonización y la geografía de la diferencia cultural en Colombia’, Análisis Político, 35 (1998), pp. 3–22Google Scholar.

35 Uribe, Urabá: ¿Región o territorio?

36 Ibid.

37 Suárez, Identidades políticas y exterminio recíproco.

38 Uribe, Urabá: ¿Región o territorio?

39 Carroll, Violent Democratization, p. 69.

40 Yezid Campos Zornosa, Memoria de los silenciados. El baile rojo: relatos (Bogotá: Ceicos, 2003).

41 Fernando Giraldo, Democracia y discurso político en la Unión Patriótica (Bogotá: Centro Editorial Javeriano (CEJA), 2001).

42 Carroll, Violent Democratization, pp. 86–7.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 García de la Torre and Aramburo Siegert, Geografías de la guerra.

46 Suárez, Identidades políticas y exterminio recíproco.

47 Carroll, Violent Democratization, p. 93.

48 The exact date of paramilitaries’ appearance in Urabá is a matter of dispute. Uribe and Melo for instance set the year of the paramilitaries’ arrival to 1987. Aviva Chomsky, on the other hand, writes that the first public denunciation of paramilitary activity in Urabá dates back to 1985 and that in 1986 a paramilitary group Muerte a Revolucionarios del Nordeste (Death to Revolutionaries of the Northeast) appeared in northeast Antioquia as well as in Urabá. Jairo Baquero Melo, Layered Inequalities. Land Grabbing, Collective Land Rights and Afro-Descendant Resistance in Colombia (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2014); Aviva Chomsky, Linked Labor Histories: New England, Colombia, and the Making of a Global Working Class (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), p. 195.

49 Uribe, Urabá: ¿Región o territorio?

50 Forrest Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia (London: Verso, 2006); García de la Torre and Aramburo Siegert, Geografías de la guerra.

51 García de la Torre and Aramburo Siegert, Geografías de la guerra.

52 Chomsky, Linked Labor Histories, p. 195.

53 Steven Dudley, Walking Ghosts. Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia (New York, London: Routledge, 2006).

54 For the analysis of how elections were a proxy for the perceived supporters of insurgents, see Steele, Abbey, ‘Electing Displacement: Political Cleansing in Apartadó, Colombia’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 55 (2011), pp. 423–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 The school was an important reference point since it was built by the community and it was improved over time. Don Andrés described it as being ‘progressive’ since it got to the stage of having three teachers working there. According to Tatiana the school has been pulled down and replaced by a banana plantation.

56 Generally speaking, people are not satisfied with the resettlement area. Of the 12 families who were resettled there, six have already left and some others still plan to do so, despite the government's requirement to stay on the land for 12 years in order to claim full rights to it.

57 Carlos Alberto Giraldo, Jesús Abad Colorado and Diego Pérez G., Relatos e imágenes: el desplazamiento en Colombia (Bogotá: Cinep, 1997), p. 159.

58 See for example Catherine LeGrand, Colonización y protesta campesina (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1988); Absalón Machado, La cuestión agraria en Colombia a fines de milenio (Bogotá: El Ancora Editores, 1998); Ana María Ibáñez and Pablo Querubín, ‘Acceso a tierras y desplazamiento forzado en Colombia. Documento Cede’ (Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, CEDE, 2004).

59 Stef Jansen and Staffan Löfving, ‘Introduction: Towards an Anthropology of Violence, Hope and the Movement of People’, in Stef Jansen and Staffan Löfving (eds.), Struggles for Home. Violence, Hope and the Movement of People (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009), pp. 1–24.

60 Ingo Schröder and Bettina Schmidt, ‘Introduction: Violent Imaginaries and Violent Practices’, in Bettina Schmidt and Ingo Schröder (eds.), Anthropology of Violence and Conflict (London, New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 1–24.

61 Oslender, ‘Another History of Violence’.

62 Martin Heidegger, ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’, in David Krell (ed.), Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), pp. 319–39.

63 Keith H. Basso, ‘Wisdom Sits in Places: Note on a Western Apache Landscape’, in Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso (eds.), Senses of Place (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1996), p. 55.

64 Escobar, Arturo, ‘Displacement, Development, and Modernity in the Colombian Pacific’, International Social Science Journal, 55: 175 (2004), 157–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Linda Green, ‘Living in a State of Fear’, in Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois (eds.), Violence in War and Peace (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 186–95.

66 Eviatar Zerubavel, ‘The Social Sound of Silence: Toward a Sociology of Denial’, in Efrat Ben-Ze'ev, Ruth Ginio and Jay Winter (eds.), Shadows of War: A Social History of Silence in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 32 (emphasis in the original).

67 Daniel Pécaut, ‘From the Banality of Violence to Real Terror: The Case of Colombia’, in Kees Koonings and Dirk Kruijt (eds.), Societies of Fear: The Legacy of Civil War, Violence and Terror in Latin America (London: Zed Books, 1999), pp. 141–67.

68 Alejandro Castillejo Cuéllar, Poética de lo otro, para una antropología de la guerra, la soledad y el exilio interno en Colombia (Bogotá: ICAN, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2000).

69 Doña Pílar.

70 Carlos.

71 Marcela.

72 Martín.

73 Sharika Thiranagama, ‘A New Morning? Reoccupying Home in the Aftermath of Violence in Sri Lanka’, in Stef Jansen and Staffan Löfving (eds.), Struggles for Home. Violence, Hope and the Movement of People (Oxford: Berghahn books, 2009), pp. 129–48.

74 Christopher Y. Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments (Oxford: Berg, 1994), p. 27.

75 Turton, ‘The Meaning of Place in a World of Movement’.