Imaginarios del retorno a Colombia posconflicto Discursos de colombianos refugiados en Ecuador

Aquest article es proposa d’identificar els imaginaris del retorn dels colombians refugiats a l’Equador i ho fa mitjançant descriure’n les trajectòries migratòries i les condicions sota les quals aquestes persones, que van deixar el país per causes relacionades amb el conflicte armat, es plantejarien de tornar un cop establerts els acords de pau. L’evidència empírica s’ha recollit, principalment, a través d’onze grups focals a la ciutat de Quito. Hom conclou que l’acabament  de la guerra només és el punt de partida per a un eventual retorn, atès que els refugiats exigeixen a l’Estat colombià un acompanyament social integral i efectiu per retornar al país. This paper aims to identify the imaginaries regarding the return of Colombian refugees residing in Ecuador by describing their migratory trajectories and the conditions under which these people –who left the country due to causes related to the armed conflict– would consider returning after the implementation of the peace deal. Empirical evidence was mainly collected through eleven focus groups in the city of Quito. The conclusion is that the end of the war is just the starting point for the return since refugees demand comprehensive and effective social support from the Colombian State in order to go back to the country.Este artículo busca identificar los imaginarios del retorno de los colombianos refugiados en Ecuador, describiendo sus trayectorias migratorias y las condiciones bajo las cuales estas personas, que salieron del país por causas relacionadas con el conflicto armado, considerarían regresar tras la implementación de los acuerdos de paz. La evidencia empírica se recolectó, principalmente, a través de once grupos focales en la ciudad de Quito. Se concluye que la terminación de la guerra es apenas el punto de partida para el retorno, ya que los refugiados demandan del Estado colombiano un acompañamiento social integral y efectivo para regresar al país.

Memory, Recognition and Solidarity: the Victims of Eastern Antioquia as Communicative Citizens

This doctoral research focuses on the relationship between civil society, collective action and the victims’ social movements of the Colombian armed conflict. It analyses the communicative and expressive dimensions of victims’ collective action as a mechanism to restore a sense of citizenship. It shows how collective belonging is constructed through processes of memory, recognition and solidarity in the midst of armed conflicts. It introduces the concept of communicative citizenship field in which emotions and affection act as a catalyst to generate collective actions for counterpublic groups in armed conflict societies transforming their victim status into an active citizenship condition. The case study of this research is Eastern Antioquia in Colombia, particularly the victims’ social movement of this Colombian region, and through a participative action research approach and developing a set of qualitative strategies, this research explores (together with the studied groups) the communicative and expressive resources they can access to obtain symbolic, cultural and political power and to act effectively within fragile public spheres. A key objective here is to understand what kind of citizen processes these collective communicative actions and strategies can open up within contexts of armed conflict and how these practices have been affecting the structure and shape of the regional and local public spheres of Eastern Antioquia in the last seventeen years. Furthermore, this doctoral research aims to present non-­‐official narratives about the Colombian armed conflict, using the victims’ perspective to understand the dynamics of contestation in the construction of memory, recognition and solidarity during the conflict, as well as in the claiming of public and conflict‐related spaces and the construction of victims’ collective identity as civilians before the cessation of violence. This study finally argues that the communicative citizenship field is part of a new research agenda to better understand, analyse and describe contemporary processes of collective action of victims’ social movements in armed conflicts and post-­‐armed conflict societies

Translating Global Nature: Territoriality, Environmental Discourses, and Ecocultural Identities

In this study, I explore environmental discourses circulating among Indigenous transboundary organizations working on environmental initiatives at the border between Ecuador and Colombia. I focus on three global environmental discourses –sustainability, development, and climate change– as they are at the core of the global environmental governance vernacular. La Gran Familia Awá Binacional (GFAB), one of the few transboundary Indigenous organizations working along the binational border, utilizes these global concepts to frame their environmental initiatives and projects. I use a critical and interpretive qualitative approach to investigate, deconstruct, and rearticulate global environmental discourses circulating among and translated by two of the organizations forming the GFAB: Federación de Centros Awá del Ecuador (FCAE) and Unidad Indígena del Pueblo Awá (UNIPA) from Colombia. I conducted in-depth interviews with cultural and political elites working in, or related to, these Awá organizations. I analyze interview texts, Awá organizations’ community-based plans, official government documents, and NGOs reports to understand (1) How does the GFAB understand, construct, and reproduce their relationships with their territories?; (2) How does the GFAB translate the global environmental discourses of development, sustainability, and climate change at the level of the communities with which this organization works?; and (3) What are the politics of identity, ecocultural identities and positionings, that emerge from Awá’s translation of and engagement with development, sustainability, and climate change within Awá’s territoriality? To answer these questions, I investigate how transboundary Indigenous communities construct a sense of territory, navigate global environmental discourses, and negotiate multiple ecocultural identities. I describe the articulations among relationships and principles that configure Awá’s territoriality. Then, I situate the notion of translation in relation to Awá’s territory, katza su, to explore the system of meanings implicated in Awá’s translation of the global environmental discourses of development, sustainability, and climate change. I illustrate how Awá recontextualize and emplace these discourses once they enter the material and discursive realm of Awá’s territoriality. Finally, I further the notion of territory and territoriality to investigate the formation of Awá, mestizos, and Afros’ ecocultural identities. I illustrate how two dialectics, insider-outsider and respect-disrespect, work in the discursive positioning of these populations as restorative or unwholesome ecocultural identities. In closing, I propose a rhizomatic situational analysis framework to map factors, forces, and processes, and demonstrate its applicability by presenting a situational analysis of the Awá binational Indigenous people. The rhizome illuminates Awá’s translation of development, sustainability, and climate change, and the ecocultural identities that emerge through processes of translation. I end with some recommendations to rethink identity-based mediation in environmental conflicts, explore transversal forms of communication, agency, and dissent, and further processes of environmental peacebuilding at the border between Ecuador and Colombia

Mine Action and Land Issues in Columbia

The purpose of this report is to examine the key links between land issues and mine action in Colombia and to provide practical ‘do no harm’ guidance to mine action organisations to ensure that mine action facilitates the return of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), promotes tenure security and contributes to longer term socio-economic recovery

Exploring the ruling on the rights of the Colombian Amazon: Taking stock of the implementation of Ruling 4360 of 2018

This thesis examines the Colombian ruling STC 4360-2018 on the Amazon region, assessing its implementation status and challenges amid Colombia’s current socio-political landscape. The ruling seeks to combat climate change by curbing deforestation to safeguard future generations’ rights. Furthermore, the ruling declares the Colombian Amazon as an entity subject of rights aiming to protect this crucial ecosystem. Nonetheless, the ruling’s practical impact remains uncertain even after five years after its issuance. The conservation of the Amazon is crucial for Colombia and the global environment, as it is often referred to as the “lungs of the world.” Despite various initiatives and commitments, including the Paris Agreement, deforestation remains a significant issue in the Colombian Amazon region. To meet the overall objective of exploring the concrete impacts and challenges to the Amazon ruling implementation, I conducted a qualitative case study using inductive and deductive analysis to explore the relationship between theory and empirical data. I collected primary data by performing semi-structured interviews with people involved and engaged with the ruling process. Additionally, I reviewed relevant official documents, academic literature, and grey literature. To support my discussion, I interplayed the findings with the pluriverse and ecological justice theories acknowledging that these theories align with the rights of nature concept and could be an alternative to include nature’s rights into legal frames. Based on the evidence, I argue that the actual execution of conferring rights to natural entities, exemplified by the Amazon ruling’s case, remains relatively undefined within the legal structure because of multiple challenges. These challenges are related to institutional and cultural disarticulation, disconnection between the ruling’s conceptual framework and its applicability on the ground, a top-down approach in its process, and the country's complex dynamics, such as armed conflict, peace efforts, and illegal activities. Furthermore, I suggest that the rights of nature lack support for necessary shifts towards inclusive politics that encompass diverse worldviews and seek achievable environmental protection. This thesis contributes to ongoing rights of nature and environmental protection discussions, highlighting complexities in translating legal frameworks into actual transformations

Reterritorializing conflicting urban natures : Socio-ecological inequalities and the politics of spatial planning in Bogotá

Bogotá (Colombia) en su historia reciente ha enfrentado varios desafíos y conflictos ambientales que han ido de la mano con la posibilidad de re-imaginar un entorno urbano-rural menos hostil y más ecológico. A pesar de muchos inconvenientes, fragmentación social, política e institucional, dicha posibilidad ha estado presente y viva durante las últimas tres décadas entre diferentes grupos sociales a través de prácticas democráticas situadas en procesos de planificación y ordenamiento territorial. Dichas prácticas a su vez se relacionan con asuntos como la estructura ecológica local y regional. Esta tesis doctoral se propuso analizar un conjunto de conflictos ambientales contemporáneos en torno al ordenamiento del territorio y la naturaleza urbana en Bogotá (1990 a la actualidad). Al analizar casos de conflicto ambiental como la urbanización especulativa o con fines de lucro sobre áreas protegidas, actividades extractivas por materiales de construcción o el impacto de áreas de rellenos sanitarios en territorios urbanos-rurales, la investigación analizó las prácticas de planificación y ordenamiento territorial para repensarlas como una tarea política colectiva que apunta a prácticas más democráticas, y no sólo como un deber exclusivo de planificadores. Me propuse demostrar cómo los procesos de planificación y ordenamiento y su vínculo con asuntos ecológicos, son una fuente de conflicto ambiental y están a su vez relacionados con varias desigualdades socio-ecológicas. La cuestión clave es comprender la dialéctica entre los conflictos y la ordenación del territorio en un contexto de alta complejidad y biodiversidad.This doctoral dissertation analyzes a set of contemporary environmental conflicts around spatial planning and urban nature in Bogotá, Colombia (1990–present day). In this research I ask what the relations are between the spatial planning processes of recent history and contemporary urban environmental conflicts. To answer this, I focus on three questions. What have the specific roles of the government authorities, civil society, and different social actors been in the processes of urban planning and environmental concerns in Bogotá in recent decades? What have the environmental and social impacts of planning policies in Bogotá’s ecosystems been during the same timeframe? How have socio-ecological inequalities in the city been linked with Bogota’s spatial planning? This dissertation therefore analyzes the dialectic between conflict and spatial planning, exploring how urban nature and spatial planning processes are a source of environmental conflict related to socio-ecological inequalities in Bogotá. In this study I scrutinize environmental conflict as a key notion for identifying more productive ways of approaching such a dialectic in the production of urban territory. Although Bogotá’s region has faced several environmental challenges and inequalities, the possibility of reimagining a more just urban nature along with the conflicts and through situated knowledge has been alive in the last three decades among different social groups in planning practices. This research is situated in the Political Ecology of Urbanization (PEU) and adopts some elements of urban environmental history, establishing a dialogue between the analysis of qualitative research material with existing information from fields such as ecology and physical geography. Therefore, this doctoral dissertation introduces a historical reconstruction about the conflicting visions around urban nature in Bogotá in the last decades. The documentation of the visions over urban nature offers an empirical basis for the design of an alternative roadmap for the understanding and management of environmental conflicts related to (spatial) planning and urban nature in the Bogotá region and beyond.Finlandi