The Politics of Dispossession: Conceptualizing Land Conflicts in Colombia

• In Event: Panel: Derecho, conflicto y movilización social en America Latina

Abstract

The concept of dispossession has taken on new force in Colombia across social, bureaucratic, and academic spaces, even as the fact of dispossession has long been part of the political landscape. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the region of Urabá, a site often considered to be “emblematic” of dispossession, I consider in this paper the possibilities and limits of dispossession as a conceptual tool for understanding the complexities of conflicts over land in the region. I trace the history of several land conflicts in Urabá to consider the challenges presented by the emergence of dispossession as a form of narration and understanding of the history of these conflicts. In distinction from many inquiries into land in Urabá, I focus on struggles not just over rural land, but also over urban space, as a crucial element of the political and social history of land in the region over the second half of the 20th century. Through this inquiry, I consider what the concept of dispossession reveals and obscures, as compared to other concepts that have emerged across local and bureaucratic registers to narrate the history of struggles over land in Urabá. I also track other categories that emerge as important alongside dispossession - in particular, possession - in the narration of contestation over land. In my analysis, I consider the material facts and meanings that are attached to these concepts as they come to matter as a means of making claims to land and as forms of legal and bureaucratic knowledge.

Author

• Meghan L Morris, University of Chicago