Скачать или смотреть #3. Melanie Lombard - Beyond Displacement

#3. Melanie Lombard // Beyond Displacement: Territorialisation in the port of Buenaventura, Colombia

19.11. 2021 @ Tour à Plomb - filmed by Sid Dankers & Amel Omar

Part of the 2021/22 StadsSalonsUrbains lecture series 'Cities for People, not for Profit. From private ownership to communal stewardship' in collaboration with the Brussels Center for Urban Studies



In (post-)conflict contexts, territorial struggles are strongly associated with the displacement of communities, whether rural-urban or intra-urban. Here, we argue for refocusing attention on territorialisation processes as a means of understanding the dynamics and consequences of contestation between vulnerable minority communities and powerful groups. Focusing on the majority Afro-Colombian city of Buenaventura in the Pacific coastal region, which is simultaneously Colombia’s most significant port and one of its most neglected cities, we explore processes of de- and re-territorialisation. Beyond tropes of displacement and resistance, territorialisation offers a conceptual lens for understanding territorial struggles as complex events, in terms of the physical and symbolic effects of de-territorialisation on communities and individuals, and re-territorialisation as plural, disruptive practices of re-existence. This suggests the need to focus on everyday experiences as well as specific time- and space-bound moments of struggle. In this way, focusing on territorialisation permits a deeper understanding of the social production of territory with multiple elements relating to identity, symbolic practices, and time-space dimensions.