Displacement In Colombia Research Articles

Threats and forced displacement in Colombia: an analysis based on municipal data

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the role of threats in the forced displacement of populations from their municipalities of origin in Colombia that is among the nations with the highest number of internally displaced people in the world with 6.7 million victims.Design/methodology/approachThe data cover the period 2011–2017 and were obtained from the Unit for Attention and Integral Reparation to Victims. Using general panel data models and a difference-in-differences identification strategy, this paper finds that threats within the context of the armed conflict show a positive and significant contribution to forced displacement in municipalities.FindingsDirect intimidations by illegal armed groups to the population seem to have an influence on the decision of the threatened person to leave the territory in general, although it is not a proportional reaction due to the fact that some victims of intimidations decide not to move to keep their assets and maintain territorial ties.Research limitations/implicationsThe study highlights that the implementation of the Peace Agreements signed in 2016 and the negotiation with illegal armed groups is an effort that the Colombian State must strengthen to prevent the occurrence of threats.Originality/valueThis paper’s contribution to the literature is twofold: the paper reveals that rising threats encourage forced displacement in Colombia, by embracing a municipality panel data perspective and a difference-in-differences design that were not applied in previous studies; and the results offer suggestive evidence of the importance of decreasing threats for positive peace outcomes, especially in the most affected territories.

Environmental Displacement in Colombia: Challenges and Progress of Judgment T-369 of 2021 from the Constitutional Court

In the Judgment T-369 of 2021, the Constitutional Court of Colombia reviews a case of human displacement caused by the diversion of the Cauca River for the Pescadero Ituango Hydroelectric Project (Hidroituango). This constitutional decision highlights the various routes established by jurisprudence for managing environmental displacement. However, this research aims to demonstrate that the existing protocols for addressing environmental displacement are not sufficient, especially considering that the incorporation of this special category of human migration into the Colombian legal system is necessary. Giving prominence to these concepts would facilitate the creation of a comprehensive care pathway focused on every stage of the environmental catastrophe generated by human movement.

The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia

The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia

Promoting recovery and resilience for internally displaced persons: lessons from Colombia

AbstractThe number of forcibly displaced persons has increased substantially since the early 2000s and has more than doubled in the last decade. Responding to the needs of forcibly displaced persons requires comprehensive legal and policy frameworks and evidence-based programmes that promote durable solutions, including sustainable movements out of poverty and their successful integration into hosting communities. In this paper, we review the dynamics of forced displacement in Colombia, the country with the largest number of internally displaced persons worldwide, and the progression of legal and policy frameworks that have been implemented since the late 1990s. We also review over two decades of research on the economic, social, and psychological consequences of forced displacement following an asset-based poverty trap framework that allows us to understand how forced displacement can alter poverty dynamics across time and generations. Throughout the review, we draw lessons for other contexts and countries affected by forced displacement and refugee flows.

Figures and responsibilities in contexts of mass violence: limits and risks of quantification in transitional justice in Colombia

ABSTRACT This article raises the limitations and risks of the use of quantification to attribute responsibilities for mass crimes in transitional justice. I question the inconsistencies in the official registry of forced displacement in Colombia with respect to the distribution of responsibilities of the armed actors, taking into account the historical trajectory of the armed conflict and the differences with social records, for which I propose to investigate the conditions under which the registration technology operates and how these affect the production of figures that circulate in the public sphere with claims of truth. I propose that the production of testimonial evidence on which the official registry is based changes according to state policies and the dynamics of the armed conflict, highlighting the importance of historically and contextually situating the official registry and how the armed conflict not only leaves victims but also produces its own representations and opacities through the story told by the official registry.

Migrant Entrepreneurs as Agents of Development? Geopolitical Context and Transmobility Strategies of Colombian Migrants Returning from Venezuela

Returnee entrepreneurs are often represented in migration and development discourses as agents of development. This assumes that they acquire valuable socio-economic resources abroad which help them to create successful businesses upon return. However, we have scant knowledge of the impact of the geopolitical context on returnee entrepreneurs or their coping strategies. Latin American returnees in particular have received little attention and few studies focus on migrants with ‘South-to-South’ return trajectories. Emphasising the role of territorial conflicts and the agency of individuals, I use a feminist geopolitical perspective to address these gaps. I contribute to migration, mobility, and development studies by studying whether Colombian migrants returning from Venezuela can reintegrate as successful entrepreneurs. Further, I offer the concept of transmobilities to study the cross-border nature of strategies of reintegration. The 30 returnees studied have a trajectory of repeated forced mobilities, ranging from internal displacement in Colombia, subsequent emigration to Venezuela, and final deportation to Colombia by Venezuela’s government. I combine the qualitative methods of multi-sited ethnography, biographical interviews, mental maps, and participatory Minga workshops. The analysis shows that Colombian returnees face intense difficulties in reintegrating despite their strong motivation and entrepreneurial spirit. The geopolitical context of armed struggle, an absent Colombian state, and territorial conflicts between Colombia and Venezuela create an unfavourable environment for returnee entrepreneurs. Consequently, they develop transmobility strategies — including the movement of people, goods, and capital across national borders — at the risk of their own lives. The simplistic discourse of returnees as agents of development needs to be revised.

Social fabric: damage and reconstruction on the basis of a collective music program

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to understand the changes in the social fabric of victims of forced displacement in Colombia as a result of these events, as well as the contributions of belonging to a collective musical program in reconstructing the social fabric of the participants. In Latin America, the metaphor of social fabric is used to represent the web of social relations that shape society. A five-year doctoral investigation sought to understand the changes in the social fabric of victims of forced displacement in Colombia resulting from these events, as well as the contributions of belonging to a collective musical program in reconstructing the social fabric of the participants. The study was undertaken using a qualitative approach and simple statistics, with which were analyzed 14 life stories and 70 sound postcards across seven families, who were victims of violence and belonged to the musical program in question. The research identified as key elements of the social fabric: networks, cohesive or divisive tangible resources, precarious or sufficient tangible resources, the experiences.Design/methodology/approachThis research had a qualitative, ethnographic and narrative approach. It was developed through life stories with sound postcards and semi-structured interviews. The research participants were 14 people from families in the program studied and 10 teachers from the same program. The fieldwork was carried out over a period of six months in four cities in Colombia, taking four to five weeks in each city. In addition to the above, documents of the organization studied were reviewed.FindingsThis paper shows the impacts on the social fabric of the participants in terms of the negative impact on their family and social networks, as well as the emergence after forced displacement of divisive intangible resources associated with distrust of self, others and society. Collective musical spaces help to break the sense of anonymity and isolation by creating new networks through which cohesive intangible resources circulate, helping participants to regain confidence in themselves and others through temporary musical identity and peaceful identity.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of this research relate to being a case study in Colombia. Although this is a national program and the study has been carried out in four different cities in the country, it is not possible to generalize. However, it is possible that in the future it will be possible to contrast the findings with the processes developed with similar organizations working in music for social construction.Practical implicationsThe results of this research have practical implications insofar as they can help to better understand the elements that make up the social fabric, the impacts of violence for families who have experienced it and the paths to recovery. Particularly for music organizations with social objectives, it can help to better understand their social impact. In that sense, it allows strategic elements of the organizations to be adjusted so that their social objectives are better met.Social implicationsThe social implications are related to the responsibility of organizations that work with victims of the armed conflict to understand the impact of violence on these people, as this understanding allows them to generate appropriate strategies of care. Particularly, for artistic organizations, and in this case, musical organizations, to understand how their action can collaborate in the recovery of people.Originality/valueAlthough the term social fabric is widely used in Latin American literature, there are few studies that clarify the concept and its application in concrete social situations. This research managed to define the specific elements of the concept and to approach the affectation of these elements by violence. Likewise, the research manages to show some ways for the recovery of the social fabric of the victims owing to their participation in the collective musical space.

Images of forced displacement in Colombia (2010-2019). An aesthetic-political analysis through Cinema

Images of forced displacement in Colombia (2010-2019). An aesthetic-political analysis through Cinema

Displacement, time and resistance: The role of waiting in facilitating occupations led by internally displaced persons in Colombia

This article contributes to the existing literature on the politics of waiting by discussing occupations led by internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia. This literature has emphasised both the power that waiting frequently entails and, increasingly, the agency it can comprise. Yet less has been said about the potential role of waiting in generating resistance. Drawing on a Foucauldian understanding of power as intimately tied to resistance, this article explores how waiting can, in some instances, produce resistance. It uses fieldwork conducted in Bogotá, Colombia, between October 2017 and August 2018, including ethnographic observations and 120 interviews conducted with IDPs and state officials, to explore the centrality of waiting to IDPs’ experiences of displacement in Colombia. Contrary to those who would argue that such waiting encourages passivity, the article draws on a discussion of a two-year-long occupation by IDPs in Bogotá to argue that the long waiting periods facing the occupation’s participants prior to partaking in it were instrumental to facilitating the occupation. Waiting enabled the occupation in two major ways: by bringing together a group of people who would not have met had they not been forced to spend prolonged time together in close quarters and by constituting a key source of frustration motivating the occupation.

Bayesian modeling of location, scale, and shape parameters in skew‐normal regression models

AbstractIn this paper, we propose Bayesian skew‐normal regression models where the location, scale and shape parameters follow (linear or nonlinear) regression structures, and the variable of interest follows the Azzalini skew‐normal distribution. A Bayesian method is developed to fit the proposed models, using working variables to build the kernel transition functions. To illustrate the performance of the proposed Bayesian method and application of the model to analyze statistical data, we present results of simulated studies and of the application to studies of forced displacement in Colombia.

Tierra quemada by Óscar Collazos as an Allegory of Displacement in Colombia

Through the portrayal of never-ending march of a caravan of internally displaced persons (IDPs), the novel Tierra quemada (2013) by the Colombian author Óscar Collazos explores the interrelation between different forms of violence and their devastating impact on the peripheric outposts of Colombia. This article proposes an allegorical reading of the novel by examining how it represents the difficulty to break the cycle of violence and the impact of a low-intensity conflict on the IDPs, without presenting a voyeuristic perspective of the violence nor a Manichean vision of the armed conflict.

Melodrama’s Fictional System: Fernell Franco’s Photography and the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema

This article analyses the work of Colombian photographer Fernell Franco through a comparative study with the work of Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa. Through the vast production and dissemination of the melodramatic genre, Mexican cinema became a paradigmatic referent for some artists working in the context of a radical urban transformation in the cities of Colombia during the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed, Franco’s work developed simultaneously with his close relationship to and immense fascination with popular Mexican cinema. This article utilises the notion of melodrama as a ‘fictional system’ that permeated the work of Franco, drawing upon Mexican movies’ mise-en-scène, dramatic lighting and the close relationship between two Mexican melodrama subgenres: the vecindad (tenement) and the prostitute’s story. The article proposes two ways of understanding Franco’s images. On the one hand, they speak about the conditions of displacement in Colombia and, on the other, they characterise what has been termed the ‘tropical gothic’. Lastly, the article discusses the importance of postproduction techniques and materiality in Franco’s work, focusing specifically on the Interiors series.

Forced displacement in Colombia and its international obligations

The historical context of Colombia with more than 60 years of armed conflict (1948 - present) reveals that the phenomenon of forced displacement and migration has occurred in various periods. This phenomenon has not ceased and on the contrary continues to present itself today and therefore represents a significant role in various national and international scenarios, associated both with public policies for its prevention and mitigation and in the prosecution of crimes that are associated with this phenomenon. This article analyzes the various phenomena of migration and displacement and their causes that make it irrepressible at present and that imply new alternative mechanisms of solution, different from punitive repressive aspects. The data is developed through a hermeneutic, analytical and jurisprudential analysis method. For this purpose, the document was prepared using historical, descriptive, teleological and reflective instruments.

Cartographies of Diasporic Thinking

ABSTRACTInspired by Judith Butler’s critique of Zionism, this article explores one artistic practice that may be considered as developing a diasporic thinking that is specifically rooted in the experience of forced displacement in Colombia. We concentrate on an artwork of Colombian artist Libia Posada as an example of the attempt to embody experiences of dispossession and eviction that goes beyond the simple acknowledgment of victimhood that has characterized the work of state institutions in dealing with displaced populations. In her installation, titled Signos cardinales (Cardinal Signs), Posada presents a series of photographs of displaced women’s feet and legs. On these bodily parts, Posada has drawn a map detailing the journey each of these women was forced to take from her native land to a different part of the country, during the armed conflict that has been affecting Colombia since the second half of the twentieth century. We focus on what we believe is the “content” of the diasporic thinking conveyed by this artwork: (1) re-inscribing a memory of displacement, thus aiming at a double exercise of re-appropriation and transformation of identity; and (2) creating a counter-genealogy of the production of space, which in the case of Signos cardinales is concretely established as what we call a “counter-cartography.”

Cleared for investment? The intersections of transnational capital, gender, and race in the production of sexual violence and internal displacement in Colombia’s armed conflict

ABSTRACT Investigating the nexus of transnational capital, gender, and race, I argue that sexual violence and internal displacement tacitly serve the interest of transnational corporations (TNCs). Drawing on extensive ethnographic research in war-torn regions in Colombia, I elucidate how violence is deeply intertwined in the globalization of neoliberal capitalism and operates by exploiting and instrumentalizing constructions of gender and race that are articulated through colonial legacies and further dehumanize the “Other.” The focus on intersectional power relations advances a critical understanding of the political economy of armed conflict. First, it reveals how local and global (economic) actors are entrenched in exacerbating local forms of domination that produce sexual violence and internal displacement through a particular political economy of masculinity and neoliberal forms of expansion and exploitation. Beyond that, both forms of violence are not only the product of colonial, capitalist, and gendered structures and ideas but also serve to re-entrench these power relations between dominant and subaltern groups. I conceptualize this relationship as the “coloniality of violence.” It constitutes a shared space for violent forms of domination and appropriation that facilitates capital accumulation, and it may further foster a relation of structural oppression in “post-conflict” Colombia.

Immaterial Damage Suffered by Internally Displaced Persons in Colombia

This paper examines the recognition of categories of immaterial damage for internally displaced persons (IDPs) by the Colombian Council of State between 2000 and 2011. For that purpose, I chose four emblematic cases to analyse the mentioned damage. The first part draws on the main elements of the definition of state responsibility in relation to forced displacement in Colombia, followed by a second part that develops the actual immaterial damage recognised for IDPs in the four rulings. The third part is related to the recognition of collective damage in the Colombian legal system. I conclude with an argument in favour of the need to consider the collective damage within the immaterial damage to be recognised by the Council of State.

Democracy and Displacement in Colombia’s Civil War. By Abbey Steele. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017. 264p. $45.00 cloth.

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A gravity model analysis of forced displacement in Colombia

Between 1985 and 2016 more than 7 million people were victims of forced displacement in Colombia. At the height of the conflict, more than 90% of municipalities in the country saw some form of displacement. In this study we extend the traditional gravity model of migration to analyze the flows of internally displaced people in Colombia between 1986 and 2015, and identify some of the main factors involved in people's choice of destination. We find violence at the origin municipality to be the most important driver of displacement. Similarly, destination municipalities with larger social networks of victims of displacement, larger overall populations, and closer to places of origin attract more displaced people. We propose forced displacement be treated as regional-level phenomenon and planners, city officials, and aid organizations focus their attention on medium-sized regional centers. Because of the importance of social networks in driving people's choice of destination, city officials, planners and aid organizations should closely collaborate with grassroots community organizations to adequately allocate resources and plan for new arrivals.

Democracy and displacement in Colombia's civil war

Democracy and displacement in Colombia's civil war

Elderly and forced displacement in Colombia.

Objective: To describe the experiences of older adults around forced displacement due to the Colombian armed conflict.Methods: Interpretive-comprehensive study, with a hermeneutical approach; several types of sampling were carried out. The participants were 12 people aged over 60 years, who reported having being displaced and who participated in the SABE Colombia Survey. The data were encoded using the Atlas.ti software. A process of condensation of central analytical, support and emerging categories was made.Results: The displacement generated by the armed conflict has been decisive in the current life conditions of the participants. They know that they are survivors of someone else's violence; there is dislocation, loss of territory, de-anchoring, lack of protection and insecurity. To the stigma of old age, it is added being displaced and being strangers in a place where they don’t belong. They live the violent uprooting of their lands and the confusion of their identity; they found themselves in a foreign scene where they were the unusual and the strangers; from receiving threats, they passed to be labeled as ‘threatening’. This forced displacement stems from violence, but also from fear, and it marks the trajectory of life for older people who experience a prolonged struggle for survival in often hostile environments, living "permanently" displaced.Conclusion: When there is displacement, older people are not only shed of their land and their home, but also from their cosmos and their vital referents; in addition, it changes their life trajectory and their place in the world. Interventions should be designed based on specific particular and contextual analyses.