‘A walk with the lads’: Masculinities’ perspectives, gender dynamics and resilience in Soacha, Colombia

Abstract

Soacha is a municipality in the periphery of Colombia's capital Bogotá, whose population has soared over the past two decades with a constant influx of people displaced by conflict all over the country. The result is a fragile municipality with a majority of highly vulnerable settlements due to: high levels of tenure insecurity; generalised lack of protection and territorial control by gangs; normalised violence; and high levels of intra-urban displacement. Disenfranchisement and lack of rights set the backdrop in which the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of people transcur.As part of the Horizon 2020 project, the ‘Preparedness and Resilience to address Urban Vulnerability’ (PRUV) Consortium employed the Urban Vulnerability Walk methodology to understand the vulnerabilities of both men and women in a gender-segregated research in one locality –Altos de Florida. While the methodology was useful to identify vulnerabilities and risks, it proved equally useful to better understand the resources of the community, both of the women and the men, in order to overcome the difficulties in which they are immersed and to build a sustainable future.