Emplaced witnessing: Commemorative practices among the Wayuu in the Upper Guajira

Abstract

This article explores witnessing in the context of mass violation of human rights. It analyses the commemorative practices of a Wayuu community around the 2004 massacre when six Wayuu, four of them women, were killed and the entire community forcibly displaced from their ancestral territory in the north-eastern part of Colombia (Guajira region). The annual commemoration temporarily brings the displaced back to their land to share, remember and have political discussions on the demands for justice and return to the territory. During these days, the Wayuu perform plural forms of testimony through the recreation of everyday life; the walking and re-signifying of the paths and sites of destruction; the remaking of places; and the re-enactment of their demands for return. This analysis highlights the restorative nature of these emplaced forms of witnessing and the role of testimony through which leaders and elders give public voice to their suffering and resistance to violence. These practices relocate the witnessing authority of outsider researchers in a relational field where survivor testimonial practices share space, knowledge production and political agendas with outsider witnesses.