Memory In Colombia Research Articles

Cómics: un camino para la pedagogía de la memoria

This text aims to underscore the potential of comics as a means to enrich the pedagogy of memory in Colombia. To achieve this goal, the experience of Literature Education students at the University of Valle, Palmira campus, in implementing an educational proposal directed towards creating comics that delve into different periods, characters, and historical events of our nation, is examined. Consequently, a concise overview of the concepts of memory and historical novel served as a foundation to broaden perspectives and discussions concerning memories and the historical narrative of violence in the country. Subsequently, comics are highlighted as a medium for addressing historical and social events, accompanied by a brief survey of some of the most significant comics.

Pedagogical guidelines for teaching the historical memory of the Colombian armed conflict

This research aims to define pedagogical guidelines to apply to the teaching of the historical memory of the Colombian armed conflict. It is framed by the need to unify the knowledge related to the pedagogy of memory, through the experiences of individuals involved in processes of reconstruction and teaching of historical memory in Colombia. For this, a phenomenological study with a qualitative approach is carried out, using the specialized semi-structured interview technique. The results indicate five pillars for the development of the pedagogy of memory in the context of the Colombian armed conflict: (1) life stories, (2) commitment to human and democratic values, (3) temporality of memory, (4) categories of violence and (5) non-formal education.

Women in community-based museums of memory in Colombia. Their struggle for peace building

ABSTRACT Institutional strengthening, securitisation, free market promotion, and development policy implementation are foundational elements of liberal peace. However, the creation of an inferior colonisable other sustains this link and has justified programmes of violent repression and silencing. Decolonial, post-liberal, localised, and feminist peace-building stances condemn those power structures and promote alternative means of achieving well-being and social transformation. Women have played a significant role in these struggles in Colombia. Among other initiatives, feminist and women’s social movements have embraced works of memory, including museums of memory, as mechanisms to produce difficult knowledge about their painful past and alternative ways to build peace. This article explores the role of women in peace-building process via case studies of two community-based museums of memory in Colombia. Cases analysed embody ways in which knowledge is created regarding war, suffering, and reflection on the significance of living a dignified life, pursuing well-being, social justice, and peaceful coexistence. Memories gathered in these museums not only recount victimising incidents but also testify to how women elevate the discussion about the colonial and patriarchal roots underpinning Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict, and how it relates to development. Findings contribute to the discussion on the challenges of peace building, which include imagining roles for women in producing knowledge beyond the stereotypes that are imposed on us, even in peace.

Radio Silences: The ‘Kidnapped Voices’ and the Production of Political Memory in Colombia (1994–2018)

AbstractAfter being kidnapped by the FARC-EP guerrilla group in 1994, the Colombian war reporter Herbin Hoyos created the radio show Las Voces del Secuestro (roughly, The Kidnapped Voices). Every morning, for 24 years, the families of those abducted by the guerrilla group sent out public messages of remembrance, hoping that their loved ones, deep in the jungles of Colombia, would be able to hear the broadcasts on their radios. Although the show closed in 2018, its legacy lives on, not only in the collective memory of many Colombians but also as an exhibition at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva (Switzerland). This article examines this show as a dispositif of power and knowledge that (re)produces a particular understanding of law, justice and memory. The show was used by far-right actors in Colombia to mobilise against the recent (2016) peace process – its crown jewel, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP). As the JEP tackles the question of the FARC-EP kidnapping through its macro-case 01, the shadow of the Voces looms large over Colombia's transitional justice system. In the longest non-international armed conflict in Latin America, even radio waves served the continuation of war by other means.

Social memory and the impact of commemorative remedies ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

AbstractSocial memory studies start from the premise that people acquire their memories not only through individual means, but through social processes as well. Social groups often provide materials for memory, and prod individuals into recalling particular events. One of the distinctive differences between the practice of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) concerns memory-related remedies. While the IACtHR quite frequently orders respondent states to commemorate grave violations of human rights (including the construction of monuments), the ECtHR has refrained from granting such commemorative remedies. Some organizations representing victims have called upon additional tribunals to embrace the IACtHR’s remedial approach to address grave breaches of international law. Drawing on social memory scholarship, this study is aimed at empirically assessing the impact of four sites of memory in Colombia established by order of the IACtHR. The study’s findings suggest that international tribunals alone cannot shape collective memories that are inconsistent with sociocultural features characterizing the local society. On the other hand, judicially-ordered sites of memory are meaningful for the victims’ families and small-scale social units. These findings turn our attention to micro-level sociological perspectives, and particularly to the symbolic-interactionist approach to international law, highlighting the vital symbolic role of international tribunals for individuals and small social units. The valuable role of such memorial sites for the victims’ relatives and related communities suggests that international tribunals addressing grave human rights violations should consider granting commemorative remedies.

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

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.

Performance Practices and the Conflict of Memory in Colombia: Working Towards a ‘Decolonial’ Digital Archive and Epistemological Justice

‘El tiempo pasa, la historia se repite, los actores se levantan’ (Time goes by, history repeats itself, the actors rise up) excerpt from the play Honrar los Sagrados Espiritus, performed in Bojaya ...

The restorative function in historical memory exercises

La memoria histórica en Colombia, fragmentada por la violencia política y afectada social y psicológicamente, termina volviéndose una herramienta terapéutica que, aplicada socialmente es fundamental para aprender las lecciones que el conflicto armado ha dejado y para superar las consecuencias que han quedado de este fenómeno. Este documento de análisis y revisión de investigaciones previas y contrastadas in situ a través de las acciones de memoria histórica adelantadas por entidades, como el Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica y la Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación, pretende mostrar las consecuencias positivas y reparadoras de un ejercicio de memoria, en población víctima y en población excombatiente. La importancia de esta tarea, redunda en un mejor aprovechamiento de la memoria histórica, como elemento reparador y, por ende, sanador de los efectos de fenómenos como el conflicto político armado.

Gramáticas de la escucha. Aproximaciones filosóficas a la construcción de memoria histórica

El artículo aborda la pregunta por la tarea de la memoria histórica en Colombia desde una perspectiva filosófica, concentrada en los retos epistemológicos y éticos derivados de la elaboración e implementación de iniciativas de memoria en contex- tos de experiencia traumática. Se busca presentar y analizar estos retos desde las consecuencias conceptuales que los contextos traumáticos le plantean a los procesos de elaboración de memoria y a la práctica de escucha de testimonios provenientes de experiencias traumáticas. Se examinan los modos para comprender, desde la filosofía, un aspecto de la tarea de la memoria que puede pasar desapercibido, con el propósito de imaginar e identificar cursos de acción y estrategias de escucha más responsables, inclusivas y plurales.

Tendencias teóricas de dos propuestas de pedagogía de la memoria en la educación superior colombiana

Este artículo de reflexión estudia dos modelos de enseñanza universitaria de pedagogía de la memoria en Colombia: uno desarrollado en la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (Bogotá) y otro implementado en la Universidad De La Salle (Bogotá). Con base en los soportes bibliográficos publicados en cada universidad, el artículo observa cuidadosamente las dos propuestas. De forma precisa, se identifican los contextos académico-universitarios; luego las filiaciones teóricas de base y sus conceptos centrales. El artículo muestra una constante fundamental, propia del horizonte anamnético-narrativo en educación: gracias al uso de la memoria y la narración, la educación universitaria abre una vía pedagógica capaz de integrar críticamente la formación universitaria y la realidad social, la lectura académica de la realidad y la experiencia vital de los estudiantes, con el fin de promover la construcción de la convivencia ciudadana en Colombia.

Memoria histórica, gestión cultural y paz en Colombia. Un estudio de caso

This article presents some preliminary results of the project: The management of historical memory in Colombia: archeology of its discursive formations. An approach from cultural management. This research tries to identify the way in which work models and academic knowledge –typical of various social, human and communicative disciplines– emerge around local and regional processes of memory recovery. The focus of this research is archaeological –in a Foucauldian sense of the term. It shows typical practical cases in the field of historical memory in Colombia. Then, it analyzes, in epistemic terms, the successive emergence of different discursive tropes and discipline practices that allowed (and allow) the development of the processes mentioned above. The presented case study was from the north of the Cauca Valley: the creation of a memorial space known as “Parque Monumento” of Trujillo. The emphasis is placed on the development of experiences related to the enunciative field of cultural management –in particular, the thematic axes of arts management and museology– as tools for intervention and redefinition of memory spaces.

Tejer y Resistir. Etnografías Audiovisuales y Narrativas Textiles

El tejido como narrativa ha sido una estrategia muy antigua, utilizada principalmente por mujeres, en donde han plasmado y perpetuado la historia de los pueblos desde su propia visión. Tejer ha tenido objetivos diversos, desde el más evidente que es vestir el cuerpo, hasta cuestiones rituales o políticas. El tejido es un lenguaje que solo puede ser comprendido y transmitido por quien lo experimenta a través del cuerpo.
 Este artículo reflexiona sobre el desarrollo de una metodología audiovisual aplicada a una investigación doctoral en torno al tejido y la memoria desde una dimensión etnográfica, política y de resistencia, pero también como un proceso creativo.
 Este artículo explora el proceso de realización de cinco videos documentales como un abordaje creativo a los diversos cuestionamientos etnográficos que se fueron suscitando a lo largo de la investigación, y al mismo tiempo, como forma de interacción con las comunidades de tejedoras y negociación de mi presencia en campo. 
 El trabajo audiovisual, sumado a una exposición itinerante de tejidos y talleres, fue la metodología que permitió ir más allá de la etnografía convencional, para hacer de la investigación, la posibilidad de tender puentes entre grupos de mujeres tejedoras, principalmente entre tejedoras amuzgas en el Estado de Guerrero en México y tejedoras por la memoria en Colombia, pudiendo entrar en diálogo a través de sus relatos tejidos, generando una reflexión potente como mujeres tejedoras y dando un lugar de valor y reconocimiento al trabajo manual que realizan cotidianamente y que ha transformado de manera positiva sus vidas.

La escuela en ecologías violentas: entre las políticas y la pedagogía de la memoria

Pedagogical proposals acquire meaning in specific socio-historic contexts, under multiple and complex conditionings. The shaping of a pedagogy of memory in Colombia and its incorporation into its schools is a response to a question of ethical-political education, in the face of a complex web of experiences of violence and the emergence of a transitional normative framework which sets forth a set of challenges that education must address for the construction of peace, coexisting with policies of memory which are reproduced in the midst of the educational system’s silence about the country´s recent history and the priority given to economic development as the purpose of training in competencies. In this scenario, the present study takes the normative commitments in the educational domain which have to do with truth, justice and reparation, with guarantees of non-repetition, in order to encourage a pedagogical commitment with memory and the teaching of the events of the recent past, in the light of the ethical imperatives of natality, welcoming and hospitality.

Picturing peace: murals and memory in Colombia

The painting of murals and graffiti is a widespread and well-established practice in Colombia. Most of the artwork is not directly political. However, a significant number of murals speak directly to the political problems of the society; to the protracted violent political conflict and the emerging peace process in Colombia. They articulate the memory of violence and represent the demands of victims for acknowledgement, reparation and justice. That articulation varies through different regions in Colombia, depending on the balance of forces between guerrillas, former paramilitaries and the state. The phenomenon of mural painting represents the meeting between victims’ agency and activist art in Colombia.