Weaving Politics: On connections and free associations in the Indigenous and Campesino movement in Colombia (2010-2014)

• In Event: Thread-ing: Imaginaries for Indigenous and Campesino mobilization in Colombia

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to work-with the ‘ancient’ practice of weaving (tejer-tejido) as both, a methodology for reflecting on contemporary indigenous and campesino politics in Colombia, and an experience for imagining, “thread-ing” and mobilizing other public-futures in the country. Both an object and a ‘practice of relationality’ (Escobar, 2012)—of relations made-as-marginal or rather inexistent—the thread weaves together multiple realities, temporalities, and domains of knowledge. The presentation is an attempt to account for new configurations or tejidos with different shapes, textures, and significations in today’s indigenous and campesino struggle for political autonomy vis-a vis material and symbolic practices with the land.

Author

• Ivan D Vargas Roncancio, Duke University