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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.
Territories of Conflict offers a comprehensive view of the cultural and political landscapes of Colombia through in-depth analyses of citizenship, displacement, local and global cultures, grassroots movements, political activism, human rights, environmentalism, and media production. The volume investigates conflict as a creative force but one that is not devoid of its destructive meaning for Colombia. It is precisely through conflict that the nation's social and cultural fabric is being mapped out, thus resulting in territories -- understood in both a literal and a metaphorical sense -- that paradoxically coexist in discordance. Contributors to this interdisciplinary volume include historians, sociologists, political scientists, musicologists, and environmentalists, as well as literary, media, and cultural studies specialists from the United States, Colombia, and Europe. CONTRIBUTORS: Maurizio Alì, Ingrid Johanna Bolívar Ramírez, Margarita Cuéllar Barona, Andrea Fanta Castro, Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste, Joaquín Llorca Franco, David Fernando García, Felipe Gómez Gutiérrez, Álvaro Diego Herrera Arango, Alejandro Herrero-Olaizola, Stacey Hunt, Camilo Alberto Jiménez Alfonso, Gregory J. Lobo, Tatjana Louis, Felipe Martínez-Pinzón, María Ospina, Kate Paarlberg-Kvam, Diana Pardo Pedraza, Aldona Bialowas Pobutsky, Chloe Rutter-Jensen, Claudia Salamanca Sánchez, Sven Schuster, Silvia Serrano, Andrea Fanta Castro is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Florida International University; Alejandro Herrero-OIaizola is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Spanish & Latin American Studies at the University of Michigan; and Chloe Rutter-Jensen is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.