Abstract
ABSTRACT Santa Catalina is a Caribbean island in the Colombian archipelago of Providencia y San Andrés, which has been at the centre of a recent territorial dispute between Colombia and Nicaragua that has made the islands central to the geostrategic agenda of the Colombian state in its attempt to reaffirm political alliances with the United States. Within this context, our investigation explores recent processes of archaeological research, heritagisation and tourism promotion on Santa Catalina Island that triggered a conflict between the local raizal population (Afro-descendant, Caribbean, Puritan and English-speaking) and the State (white, Andean, Catholic and Spanish-speaking) around the meaning of two key sites of memory—Fuerte Libertad (Fort Warwick) and the Cabeza de Morgan (Morgan's Head). Drawing on long-term ethnography, this paper reveals how the neoliberal, multicultural state of Colombia has functioned as an investment facilitator and a key actor in transforming ethnic-racial differences into class inequalities.
Highlights
This paper presents an study of the disciplining role of archaeology in producing truths about ethnicity, community and heritage in Colombia
This is a racialized and ethnicized question as it addresses the raizal group in Santa Catalina, an island that belongs to the San Andrés y Providencia department, and focuses on a new empirical case that furthers studies on intergroup relations within Colombia Santa Catalina island has a tiny population and is connected by a road bridge to the larger island of Providencia: both islands are part of the archipelago cantered on the largest island of San Andres, which is a major tourist centre
This paper has explored the inherently conflictive nature of heritage policy implementation in the Providencia y San Andrés archipelago, in Santa Catalina
Summary
This paper presents an study of the disciplining role of archaeology in producing truths about ethnicity, community and heritage in Colombia. We show that heritage serves the purposes of multiculturalism by serving as the fetishist means to transform culture into metaculture, and alterity into abstract representations of difference (Alonso González 2017) To explore these issues, we have examined the conflictive heritagisation process of Fort Warwick or Fuerte Libertad (names defended respectively by the raizales and the Colombian State) and the tensions surrounding it in Santa Catalina. The conflict between the raizales and the Colombian State reveals how the rhetoric surrounding heritage enhancement projects conceals the economic interests of powerful actors States conduct their investigations in accordance with heritage conservation principles provided by institutions such as UNESCO to establish abstract schemes of governance based on a global hierarchy of value (Herzfeld 2004), framing the capitalisation of culture as a process of dialogue and negotiation with the community. Addressing the internal hierarchies and major political and economic factions within the island goes beyond our scope here, we will examine how the transformations described above affect the relationship between heritagisation and nationalisation
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