Introduction: Territories of Conflict through Colombian Cultural Studies

Summary

Conflict seems to be everywhere in Colombia. From the most egregious and incomprehensible violent actions to the catchiest musical tunes, from the remotest rural areas to burgeoning urban enclaves, from the ruling privileged elites to the socially forgotten and the dispossessed, conflict has long codified most political and cultural endeavors in this South American nation. Taking this (somewhat overgeneralizing) opening statement as our premise, Territories of Conflict investigates Colombia's violent past and present (e.g., guerrilla and paramilitary warfare, drug trafficking, kidnappings), inaccessible geography, and multiple ethnic and indigenous conflicts to precisely address the territoriality of dissension—namely, geographical and political spaces ruled by contested discourses that have for centuries dominated its national body politic. Conflict, in a sense, defines Colombia as a nation and continues to permeate its political discourse and cultural production (almost) to the point of no return. It is through conflict that the nation's social and cultural fabrics are being mapped, thus resulting in territories— understood both in a literal and metaphorical sense—that exist (if not “thrive”) in discordance. Thus, conflict in Colombia appears, more often than not, to be a creative force that is not fully devoid of its destructive meaning. Whether self-consciously or not, cultural producers have fully embraced this paradox as they openly reject conflict while simultaneously using (and needing) it for their creative projects.

The volume's contributors address this contradictory relationship between conflict and cultural production from multiple and converging perspectives. They see the extreme class disparity and widespread social injustice in Colombia as the point of departure for its racial, ethnic, geographical, and social heterogeneity, which then favors extreme political alignments when it comes to conflict resolution (see Fernandez L'Hoeste's chapter in this volume). Likewise, it is important to bear in mind that, in the case of Colombia, conflict is primarily based not on the establishment of national or regional borders (where most national conflicts typically arise) but rather on the “contestation over belonging to a fictional category of Colombianness [colombianidad], built over stories of liberation, oppression and encounters,” as Salamanca's chapter contends.