To Feel and to Re-signify Forced Displacement in Colombia

Abstract

This chapter presents an analysis of the feelings expressed by people living in situations of forced displacement in Colombia. It also studies their reframing and their permanence, by way of doing participatory psychological accompaniment, among different communities of uprooted people. Feelings associated to forced displacement were fear, embarrassment, sadness, uncertainty, lack of trust, homesickness, and suffering. The psychosocial accompaniment allowed the transit from suffering to hope and, from lack of trust to trust. Feelings associated to the traumatized memory could not be reframed. The main factors for the permanence of these feelings are the continuity of the armed conflict and the scarcity of structural conditions for a dignified re-restoration. The text analyzes the way in which, despite adversity, participants overcame difficulties and rebuilt their lives in an unknown cultural context.