Left-wing melancholia and activist memories of the Colombian conflict in Fabiola Calvo Ocampo’s Hablarán de mí

Abstract

Dialoguing with recent memory studies scholarship that has questioned the field’s predominant focus on violence, victimhood and trauma, this article explores the emergence of forms of memory in Colombia that alongside commemorating the armed conflict also incorporate positive memories of the past and memories of left activism. To do so, it analyses Colombian journalist and academic, Fabiola Calvo Ocampo’s testimonial text Hablarán de mí as a key example of recent transitional justice and memory discourses emerging out of a new peacebuilding context in the country. Although detailing a history of trauma and a melancholic vision of the catastrophic destruction of the left in Colombia, the article reads Calvo Ocampo’s testimony through Enzo Traverso’s reading of left-wing melancholia to suggest that the text recovers a memory of the vanquished as part of an attempt to restore a left-activist memory of past historical struggles, which can be mobilised for the current peacebuilding scenario.