Acts of (Black)Resistance: Afrodescendant and Afroindigenous Women’s Activism Post-Conflict in Montes de María

• In Event: Raza y resistencia (cultural) en el conflicto armado/posconflicto en Montes de María y Cartagena, Colombia

Abstract

This study as the product of research conducted during Spring 2018 under a Fulbright Core Research Grant and departs from oral testimonios shared by thirteen Afrodescendant and Afroindigenous women from the region of Montes de María in the Northern coast of Colombia who, compelled by their experiences of war, have come to occupy positions of leadership in their communities through various means that include roles as cantadoras, singers or traditional songs; tejedoras, weavers; community organizers; cultoras, promoters of traditional practices, and agricultoras, food growers. Whether they are resistentes, who remained on their land during the war, or de retorno and are now back in their own land, the cultural practices and grass root work in which these Afro women are now engaged serve as strategies deployed to ensure their economic survival, and to work through the memory of their victimization. This juncture between activism, economic survival and culture helps qualify the experience of war from a gendered and ethnic perspective, for Afro women are the pillars of their communities and families. Ultimately, this study aims to contribute to efforts already in place to generate a dialogue intended to offer reparation, even if only symbolic, to the Afro women whose lives, families, and communities were crushed by the armed conflict in the ethnoterritory of Montes de María.

Author

• Ligia S Aldana, SUNY/New Paltz