Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Social movements – Colombia'

Thesis (M.A.)--University of California, San Diego, 2009.
Title from first page of PDF file (viewed July 9, 2009). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Includes bibliographical references (p. 86-90).

Between 2010 and 2015, the most important protest cycle in the history of Colombia takes place, organized by leftist social organizations. At the same time, the Polo Democrático Alternativo, the main leftist party, experiences an electoral decline and the fragmentation of its internal tendencies. Consequently, the Colombian left fails to translate the discontent of social protest into electoral results. This article analyzes the disagreement between protests and elections, arguing that it is a result, on the one hand, of structural constraints characteristic of a political system in which electoral politics is not separated from violence and, on the other hand, the inability of the left to generate frameworks of collective action capable of challenging voters beyond the identities that exclude their different tendencies.
Entre 2010 y 2015 tiene lugar el ciclo de protestas más importante en la historia reciente de Colombia, agenciado por organizaciones sociales de izquierda. Al mismo tiempo, el Polo Democrático Alternativo, el principal partido de izquierda, experimenta un declive electoral y la fragmentación entre sus tendencias internas. Por consiguiente, la izquierda colombiana no consigue traducir el descontento de la protesta social en resultados electorales. Este artículo analiza el desencuentro entre protestas y elecciones, planteando que es resultado, por una parte, de constricciones estructurales propias de un sistema político en donde la política electoral no está desligada de la violencia y, por otra, de la incapacidad de la izquierda para generar marcos de acción colectiva capaces de interpelar votantes más allá de las identidades excluyentes de sus distintas tendencias.

L' essentiel de ce travail se situe dans l`intersection entre le déroulement des mouvements sociaux ruraux et les expériences révolutionnaires armées, en partant d`un cas spécifique dans lequel un mouvement communautaire, ayant une forte base ethnique, a dû faire face à une situation de violence généralisée à cause de la présence simultanée d`un conflit social en évolution et d`acteurs insurgés armés qui se disputaient le territoire et la population. Il s`agit du Mouvement Armé Quintín Lame, organisation ayant agi entre 1985 et 1991 dans le nord du département du Cauca, au sud-ouest de la Colombie. Dans ce territoire d`environ 250.000 habitants (21% de la population indienne nationale) se trouve la deuxième grande concentration indienne du pays. Depuis les années soixante-dix, ce scénario est l`épicentre de la plus grande mobilisation armée de la Colombie qui, quarante ans après, obtiendra des réussites indiscutables dans sa lutte pour l`autonomie, la récupération de la terre au bénéfice des communautés indiens et de précieux éléments culturels qui ont permis de consolider un processus réussi de recomposition identitaire
This work lies in the intersection between the process of rural social movements and the armed revolutionary experiences, starting from a specific case in which a community movement, with a strong ethnic base, had to cope with widespread violence because of the simultaneous presence of the social conflict and insurgents armed who disputed the territory and population. This is the Quintin Lame Armed Movement, an organization that acted between 1985 and 1991 in northern Cauca, southwest Colombia. This territory of about 250,000 inhabitants (21% of the national Indian population) is the second largest concentration of native country. Since the seventies, this scenario is the epicenter of the largest social mobilization of Colombia who, forty years later, obtain indisputable successes in its fight for autonomy, the recovery of land for the benefit of Indian communities and valuable cultural elements that have helped to consolidate a successful process of reconstruction of identity

This dissertation examines the work of alternative economies activists who have spent the last 18 years constructing barter systems and local currencies in Medellín, Colombia. Through barter, these activists hope to spark an ethical re-evaluation of production, exchange, and consumption, and to create an economy that serves Medellín's middle-class professionals, rural peasants, urban workers, students and the chronically under-employed. They also see barter as an important social and political project to repair a social fabric torn by decades of violence and economic exploitation. For these activists barter is a counter to capitalism, violence, and social fragmentation; it is a new proposal rooted in cooperation, collective well-being, and the development of local capacities. Previous researchers have thoroughly examined the emergence, organization, and impacts of these types of alternative economies, but they have neglected what many activists consider to be the greatest challenge: to cultivate the new social relations and subjectivities necessary to enact and maintain those models. In the words of Colombia's barter organizers, the goal is to "change the chip" and "clean out the cucarachas" of our capitalist mindsets in order to "create a new culture of solidarity." This research is located at precisely that sticking point. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic research, I examine the nature and impacts of barter and the challenges that barter activists face as they try to recreate economies, social relations, and subjectivities. Medellín's barter projects, I conclude, offer extremely important opportunities for cross-class and cross-generational interaction in a city that is violently divided. They also provide material and social supports for traders who are seeking to develop alternative subjectivities, and they help active traders gain control over the means of production and the conditions of their work. However, their counter-hegemonic potential is significantly limited by three tensions within organizers' strategies: a tendency to prioritize socio-cultural forms of activism at the expense of economic ones, a focus on conscious and moral aspects of subjectivity rather than material and embodied aspects, and a stridently anti-capitalist stance that discourages economic articulations and thereby reinforces the material and socio-cultural power of capitalism.

El interés de este estudio es examinar las relaciones entre movimientos étnicos y estado en torno a una disputa territorial. En América Latina, los derechos colectivos territoriales étnicos inscritos en las nuevas constituciones abrieron un nuevo marco legal e institucional. El análisis se centra en tratar de entender si el terreno legal e institucional derivado del multiculturalismo facilita la resolución de los conflictos territoriales. Para esto se observa cómo la interacción entre estado y movimientos étnicos guía la elección de las estrategias. Desde esta perspectiva, se estudia el caso de la relación entre el estado colombiano y las comunidades negras de Jiguamiandó y Curvaradó. La información sobre el caso se recolectó a través de entrevistas semi-estructuradas y del análisis de documentos. En 2001, las comunidades huyeron de sus territorios colectivos debido al conflicto armado interno, los cuales fueron ocupados ilegalmente por empresas de palma africana. Por medio de las instituciones del estado, las comunidades han buscado la restitución de sus territorios. En un contexto legal e institucional marcado por alianzas entre grupos paramilitares y élites locales y nacionales, la resolución del conflicto territorial deviene un proceso complejo. Para el análisis del caso se hacen preguntas sobre la influencia de las reformas multiculturales y del terreno legal e institucional estatal sobre las estrategias legales de las comunidades de Jiguamiandó y Curvaradó. También se analiza la intervención de Organizaciones No Gubernamentales (ONG) en la relación entre el estado colombiano y las comunidades. En el estudio se concluye que el complejo contexto legal e institucional limita el margen de acción nacional de las comunidades pero también las provee de estrategias legales que combinan diferentes niveles (local, nacional y transnacional). Las ONG tienen un rol primordial en el planteamiento de tales estrategias que traspasan las fronteras del Estado-Nación, así como en la consolidación a nivel local de la identidad colectiva del movimiento étnico.

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Alors que la Colombie traverse une période de violence intense au début des années 1990, une forme de média en apparence nouvelle se diffuse dans tout le territoire et est légalisée par l’Etat: celle des radios communautaires. Associées à de multiples fonctions, elles sont censées être politiquement neutres, donner la voix aux sans voix, pacifier, reconstruire le tissu social déchiré… Comment expliquer la diffusion et l'institutionnalisation d'un média marginal dans un contexte aussi difficile ? A partir d'une démarche généalogique et comparative sur cinq régions colombiennes, cette thèse montre que la radio communautaire peut être comprise comme une forme d’action collective dont les origines remontent à la fin des années 1940. Retracer l’histoire de la catégorie met en évidence l’existence de groupes militants aux intérêts multiples qui luttent pour la « cause des médias ». Loin de l’image du média petit, pur et isolé, les radios communautaires se sont développées dans un espace médiactiviste multisectoriel, à l’intersection de plusieurs sphères d’activité. Si les radios communautaires ont été légalisées en Colombie, c’est parce que ces militants multi-positionnés, acteurs intermédiaires entre ces sphères, cadrent l’objet en des termes compatibles avec l’action de l’Etat. Le média est alors redéfini et donne lieu à des appropriations diversifiées sur les territoires, en fonction des configurations d’acteurs à différentes échelles. Loin de leur image « apolitique », les radios communautaires peuvent être comprises comme des lieux de renégociation des frontières de la « communauté imaginée » dans un pays habituellement décrit comme un territoire fragmenté
While Colombia was experiencing a period of intense violence at the beginning of the 1990s, an apparently new media form, the community radio, spread throughout the entire territory, and was legalized by the state. Designated with multiple functionalities, community radios are constructed as politically neutral, giving voice to those who are marginalised, pacifying, and rebuilding broken social tissues... How can we explain the diffusion and institutionalization of what is considered a marginal media in such a hard context? Through a genealogic and comparative analysis of five Colombian regions, this thesis shows that the community radio can be understood as a collective means of action whose origins can be tracked to the late 1940s. An analysis of the history of the category draws attention to the existence of militant groups with multiples interests who fight for « the media cause ». Far from the image of what is considered a small media, pure and isolated, community radios were developed in a “mediactivized” multisectorial space, at the crossroads of several spheres of activity. That the Ccommunity radios were legalized in Colombia , is because its multi-positioned militants, acting as intermediaries between different spheres, adapted them on compatible terms with the state activities. The media wasis then redefined and give accorded a place withto in a diversified appropriation of the territories, according to actors at different geographical scales. Far from their « apolitical » figure, the community radios can be understood as a place site of renegotiation of the frontiers of the « imagined community » in a country usually described as a fragmented territory

Against all odds, in uncertain and violent times, Colombian women are mobilising for gender justice. They do so even when they face ongoing violence and personal threats from a variety of armed actors. The questions arise: how and why do women mobilise in contexts of high violence and insecurity? Despite a well-established tradition of studying women's social movements in times of conflict, and of high risk collective action more generally, there is a lacuna when it comes to analysing feminism as a mobilisation strategy. My research uses the case studies of the Liga de las Mujeres Desplazadas (League of Displaced Women, LMD), and AFROMUPAZ (Afro-Colombian Women for Peace) to illustrate the utility of an original framework - High Risk Feminism - to explain how and why women chose to act collectively, despite the real and threatened dangers that this implies. The thesis further looks to a similar setting (an invaded neighbourhood in Riohacha, La Guajira) where displaced women do not mobilise, in order to strengthen the parameters of the HRF framework. In all, it posits that we will see a specifically feminist type of mobilisation emerge when a leader is able to form a charismatic bond with participants by framing participation as 'worth it' in a domain of losses, despite the risks this incurs.

The purpose of this research is to analyze how the media in Colombia covers the events and campaigns of the pacifist women’s movement La Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres. The movement was formed in 1996 to draw attention to violence against women and to call for a negotiated end to Colombia’s internal armed conflict through peaceful demonstrations. The study uses a series of semi-structured interviews with members of the movement and a content analysis of major print media stories about the movement to analyze press coverage and forms of representation. The analysis finds that large, powerful media outlets based in the country’s principal cities largely ignore the movement, while smaller, local media outlets based in provincial regions and alternative media outlets cover the movement’s activities and campaigns. La Ruta Pacífica has developed media strategies to foster friendly media relations when possible and to work without any media attention when necessary.

This project engages with the Kogi, an Amerindian indigenous people from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range in northern Colombia. Kogi leaders have been engaging in a consistent ecological-political activism to protect the Sierra Nevada from environmentally harmful developments. More specifically, they have attempted to raise awareness and understanding among the wider public about why and how these activities are destructive according to their knowledge and relation to the world. The foreign nature of these underlying ontological understandings, statements, and practices, has created difficulties in conveying them to mainstream, scientific society. Furthermore, the pre-determined cosmological foundations of Kogi society, continuously asserted by them, present a problem to anthropology in terms of suitable analytical categories. My work aims to clarify and understand Kogi environmental activism in their own terms, aided by anthropological concepts and “Western” forms of expression. I elucidate and explain how Kogi ecology and public politics are embedded in an old, integrated, and complex way of being, knowing, and perceiving on the Sierra Nevada. I argue that theoretically this task involves taking a realist approach that recognises the Kogi’s cause as intended truth claims of practical environmental relevance. By avoiding constructivist and interpretivist approaches, as well as the recent “ontological pluralism” in anthropology, I seek to do justice to the Kogi’s own essentialist and universalist ontological principles, which also implies following their epistemological rationale. For this purpose, I immersed myself for two years in Kogi life on the Sierra, and focused on structured learning sessions with three Mamas, Kogi spiritual leaders and knowledge specialists. I reflect on how this interaction was possible because my project was compatible with the Mamas’ own desire to clarify and contextualise the Kogi ecological cause. After presenting this experience, I analyse the material as a multifaceted, interrelated, and elaborate system to reflect the organic, structured composition of Kogi and Sierra, also consciously conveyed as such by the Mamas. I hereby intend to show how the Kogi reproduce, live, and sustain this system through daily practices and institutions, and according to cosmological principles that guide a knowledgeable, ecological relationality with things, called ‘the Law of Origin’. To describe this system, I develop a correspondingly holistic and necessary integration of the anthropological concepts of cosmology, ontology, epistemology, and ecology. Based on this, I argue that Kogi eco-politics are equally embedded in this system, and constitute a contemporary attempt to maintain their regulatory relations with the Sierra Nevada and complement their everyday care-taking practices and rituals. In Kogi terms, this continuity and coherence is a moral imperative and environmental necessity. Thus framing and clarifying Kogi eco-politics may enrich insights into the nature of indigenous ecological knowledge, and may help address environmental problems.

Ce travail rend compte des potentialités et des obstacles majeurs des principaux partis et mouvements politiques colombiens. Ces groupes seront étudiés dans le champ désigné ici comme la gauche légale et réformiste. Cette analyse concerne la période entre la rédaction de la Constitution politique de 1991, et les élections sénatoriales et présidentielle de 2010. Le travail en trois parties décrira comment ces organisations ont été les actrices prépondérantes du renforcement de la démocratie, de la consolidation d’un groupe de politiciens professionnels de la gauche, et la recherche d’une solution du conflit armé qui (symbolise la Colombie) et les causes qui le déclenchent. La première partie montre une coalition politique formée des quelques organisations de gauche, en particulier des anciennes guérillas ayant abandonné leurs armes, qui forment l’Alliance Démocratique M-19 (Alianza Democrática M-19). Il sont impliqués dans l’élaboration de la Constitution et la transformation du bipartisme historique. La deuxième partie décrit les dynamiques concernant la recherche de la Paix (comme les conversations gouvernement-FARC). Les organisations appartenant à la gauche légale et réformiste y ont joué un rôle actif, qui fait renaître entre elles les liens brisés après le fiasco de l’AD M-19. La dernière partie met en évidence comment la recherche de la paix parmi d’autres conjonctures permet l’émergence de nouvelles alliances et organisation politiques. Elles donneront naissance à une sorte de parti qui est la synthèse de tous les groupes précédents. Ce parti sera le Pole Démocratique Alternatif (Polo Democrático Alternativo ; la plus grande expérience de cette gauche jusqu’à nous jours)
This work reports on the major achievements and hurdles encountered by the principal Columbian political parties and movements; these groups will be studied within the scope of the legal and reformist Left. The analysis spans from the drafting of the political constitution of 1991 until the senatorial and presidential elections of 2010. The work is divided in three parts: how these organisations became the major actors of the reinforcement of democracy; the story of the consolidation of a group of left political professionals, seeking a solution to the armed conflict which has become the symbol of Columbia; and finally, the causes which set these events into motion. The first part shows the implication of a political coalition –the Democratic Alliance M19-composed of a sample of leftist organisations and in particular the former and now disarmed guerrillas, in the elaboration of the constitution and the transformation of the historical bipartisanship. The second part shows the impulse given in part by the quest for peace (for example the talks between the government and the FARC). The movements connected with the legal reformist Left, played once again an active part which revived among them the ties distended after the fiasco of the ADM19. The last part underlines how the quest for peace, among other factors, allowed the forthcoming of new coalition and political organisations. They later give birth to a kind of party which is the synthesis of all the earlier groups. This party became the Democratic Alternative Pole (Polo Democrático Alternativo),the most important experience of the Columbian Left up to now

A partir de la reconstruction et de l’analyse du processus d’apparition de la question des femmes victimes du conflit armé en Colombie comme une cause de mobilisation féministe, cette recherche rend compte du rôle structurel du droit dans sa gestation et sa consolidation. Grâce à une approche qui articule les perspectives de la sociologie du droit, de la sociologie des mouvements sociaux, ainsi que de la critique féministe du droit, l’analyse met en exergue les conditions d’émergence des dénonciations publiques et juridiques des femmes affectées par les violences armées, qu’elles se mobilisent d’elles-mêmes ou que la mobilisation se fasse en leur nom. A partir d’une enquête empirique fondée principalement sur des entretiens, l’analyse des discours et l’observation du fonctionnement des instances judiciaires, outre la compréhension du rôle axial du recours au droit et à la justice dans ces processus, l’analyse de la cause permet d’enquêter sur la place de la question des femmes et des victimes dans l’action publique en Colombie, notamment dans les politiques qui visent la « sortie du conflit ». Des concepts tels que « justice transitionnelle », « droits humains des femmes » ou les « politiques constitutionnelles » sont aussi revus conformément à une perspective constitutive du droit. L’histoire contemporaine du conflit armé colombien, des mobilisations sociales pour la paix ou contre la guerre, ainsi que des efforts institutionnels pour gérer les effets des violences se trouvent ainsi interpelées. D’une part, du fait de la perspective doublement genrée que les objets « femme victime » et « mobilisation féministe » introduisent. D’autre part, en raison des dynamiques générées par le surgissement de la question des femmes victimes comme étant à la fois un objet de mobilisation, un sujet de dénonciation, et une « sujette de droits »
This research focuses on the reconstruction and analysis of the process of the emergence of the issue of women victims of the armed conflict in Colombia, as a result of feminist mobilization. The research shows the structural role of law and legal mobilization in its birth and consolidation. With an approach that articulates the perspectives of sociology of law, sociology of social movements, and the feminist critique of law, the analysis highlights the conditions for the emergence of legal and public denunciations of women affected by armed violence. Grounded on an empirical research based primarily on interviews, discourse analysis and observation of court proceedings, the analysis of the cause allows to investigate the place of the issue of women and victims in public policies, including the efforts for achieve the "end of the conflict", in addition to understanding the pivotal role of recourse to law and justice in these processes. Concepts such as "transitional justice", "the human rights of women" or "constitutional politics" are also reviewed and discussed through a "constitutive" law perspective. In this way, the contemporary history of the Colombian armed conflict, and of the social mobilization for peace and against war, and also the history of institutional efforts to manage the effects of violence, are also revisited. On one hand, the discussion of those topics is determined by the fact that they can be thought as an effect of the double gendered perspective that topics such as "women victims" and "feminist mobilization" introduce. On the other hand, they are also part of a more global discussion due to the dynamics generated by the public emergence of the issue of women victims, who are simultaneously an object of mobilization, a subject of denunciation, and a "subject of rights"

Cette thèse analyse les transformations des rapports sociaux liées au développement minier contemporain du nord Andin péruvien, qui ont donné lieu à une politisation des relations ethniques et de genre dans les mobilisations d'opposition aux activités extractives. Elle aborde cet objet à partir d’une ethnographie de la région Cajamarca, une des principales zones d’investissement minier à l’échelle nationale depuis 1992, et du réseau militant qui depuis 2011 s’oppose à la mise en place du projet Minas Conga. Le travail de recherche se situe à la croisée d’une ethnographie de l’activité militante et d’une sociohistoire des catégorisations ethniques ; il adopte à cette fin une approche féministe intersectionnelle et décoloniale.Réalisé entre 2011 et 2013, le travail de terrain a permis de saisir la façon dont le développement minier régional reconfigure les rapports productifs qui engendrent des nouvelles formes de différentiation sociale et de nouvelles alliances trans-sectorielles et multi-scalaires. L’enquête réalisée auprès des militants locaux a mis en évidence la politisation des identifications ethniques et de genre dans les mobilisations d’opposition aux activités minières, ainsi que la reproduction des hiérarchies sociales qu’elles sous-tendent. Les trajectoires militantes et les enjeux nationaux du conflit ont éclairé un processus de réorganisation politique et de réappropriation de l’état par le bas. Finalement, l’analyse des représentations du conflit circulant dans l’espace public national et médiatique international pendant la période 2013-2016 permet de saisir les éléments de continuité et de rupture dans les imaginaires de l’altérité. En émerge notamment, en lien avec l’expansion des activités extractives et des mobilisations sociales, une reconfiguration de la catégorie d’« indigène » et du régime d’altérité nationale dont il relève
This thesis analyses the transformation of social relations connected to the recent development of mining activities in the northern Peruvian Andes, which has given rise to a politicisation of ethnic and gender relations in social movements opposing extractive activities. It approaches this topic through an ethnography of the Cajamarca region, one of the main areas of national mining investment since 1992, and the militant network that has opposed the implementation of the Minas Conga mining project since 2011. The research method employed combines an ethnography of activism with a socio-history of ethnic categorisation, and adopts to this end an intersectional, decolonial feminist approach. Fieldwork research carried out between 2011 and 2013 provided insights into the ways in which regional mining development can reconfigure productive relations, creating new forms of social differentiation as well as new trans-sectorial and multi-scalar alliances. A focus on local militants has revealed the politicisation of ethnic and gender identifications in mobilisations against mining activities, as well as the reproduction of underlying social hierarchies. Activist trajectories and the national stakes of the conflict shed light on a process of political reorganisation and appropriation of the state from below. Finally, the analysis of activist representations circulating in the national public space and international media between 2013 and 2016 reveals the elements of continuity and rupture in the representation of Otherness. What emerges in particular, within the context of expanding extractive activities and social mobilisations, is a reconfiguration of the category of “indigenous” and the national regime of otherness from which it derives

Defence date: 24 October 2017
Examining Board: Donatella della Porta, SNS/EUI (Supervisor); Sidney Tarrow, Cornell University; Jennifer Welsh, EUI; Elisabeth Wood, Yale University.
The thesis was awarded the Linz-Rokkan Prize in Political Sociology 2018
This study deals with the collective roles that civilians come to play in the context of civil war. Concretely, it documents and analyzes a little studied pattern of civilian agency: civilian noncooperation with armed groups. It develops a theory that specifies where and when civilians are more likely to organize themselves to refuse non-violently to cooperate with armed organizations. Where territorial control is shifting, where violence against civilians has recently spiked, and where targeting is perceived as unavoidable, a desire for noncooperation is likely to evolve. However, this desire is not enough for us to observe organized noncooperation. Campaigns of noncooperation are likely to emerge when desire meets capacity for collective action. Localities with a prior history of mobilization and/or with the support of external actors are more likely to count on the leadership and the associational space needed for organizing action. These conditions are found to be individually necessary and jointly sufficient across three different ideal types of noncooperation: oblique, pacted and unilateral. Complementing this set of expectations, the study specifies a limited number of cognitive and relational mechanisms that explain the pathway towards noncooperation. Civilian noncooperation is proposed both as a strategy of community self-protection and a form of contentious politics. In this sense, the study bridges scholarship on the micro-dynamics of civil war, civil resistance, social movements/collective action and civilian protection. The analysis is embedded in a three-stage research design that combines within-case analysis, cross-case structured and focused comparisons, and paired comparisons of positive and control observations. The empirical data, both qualitative and quantitative, was gathered during two separate waves of field research in warzones using different techniques of data collection. These included over 150 individual and group interviews with civilians and (ex)combatants, memory workshops, collective map-drawing and timeline-building exercises, and direct observation. The goal of this study is accomplished to the extent that it succeeds in the art of combining parsimonious theorization of an outcome with the smells and sounds of the complex processes that give life to that outcome. In other words, providing sensitive simplification and empirically falsifiable claims is as important as offering a realistic and fair account of the lives of the communities I lived and worked with over the past years. Ultimately, it is for the reader to judge.

Since at least the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, security has emerged as a major political paradigm built upon an expansive definition of state control emphasizing not only the mere policing of violations of law, but the means through which the state asserts itself as a particular political entity through the militarized management of social actors both inside and outside its borders. Through an analysis of the case of Colombia's Democratic Security policy, this dissertation documents the transformations of social mobilization within the boundaries of the newly politicized, and newly globalized, security state. The research builds upon six months of ethnographic work and in-depth interviews with Valle del Cauca regional chapters of pacifist feminist grassroots network Women's Peaceful Route, with human rights advocacy organization Permanent Committee for Human Rights, and with afrodescendant movement Process of Black Communities. Analyzing the work of these organizations, this dissertation assesses the uneven impact of security policies on social actors claiming territorial, cultural, and political rights. Through these organizations the work illuminates how security is gendered and racialized, while it is strongly resisted by the movements' challenge to the model of citizenship promoted by the state. The research poses that, no longer able to see human rights work in terms of the defense of individuals, social movements have instead redeployed the concept of human rights as a mode of articulating radical democratic demands reflecting a collective social struggle. Illustrating the connections between neoliberal development and security, and its impact for afrodescendants and women's claims for rights and recognition, the dissertation shows how global discourses on security influence the constitution of new social identities through the constant re-iteration of the question 'who is the terrorist,' and the subsequent re-articulation of new parameters of citizenship. Beyond Colombia's case, this research advances existing scholarship regarding the technologies of statehood in the post September 11 era, at the same time that it contributes to an understanding of social mobilization in the context of global and hemispheric governance.

In this thesis, I examine the case of the Canadian-based multinational mining corporation GreyStar resources Ltd. in Colombia. Angosturas is GreyStar’s large-scale gold mining project in the sensitive wet highland of páramo de Santurbán in the northeast of the Andes. Although GreyStar has undertaken explorations in this area since 1994, Colombia’s Ministry of Environment denied the environmental license to the company to start with extractions in 2011. I suggest that the government’s decision must be understood in the context of massive mobilizations against the project in large cities such as Bucaramanga and Bogotá as well as the principle of sustainable development (hereafter SD). The latter forms part of the 1991 Colombian constitution, and thus, through this legal presence, is considered to provide environmental protection in the country. Despite this government’s recent ruling, GreyStar (which renamed itself ‘Eco Oro’ after the 2011 decision) and other mining companies (e.g. Ventana Gold) have continued their quest to gain permission to begin with extractions in Santurbán. I explore why these continued attempts to persuade the government regarding extraction licensing is possible. In doing so, I critically investigate the principle of SD, which is central to the resolution by which the Ministry of the Environment denies the environmental license to Eco Oro (GreyStar). In other words, this thesis asks why SD allows for the classification of large-scale mining as a ‘common-good’ activity, which has negative implications on attempts to designate certain ecosystems (e.g. páramo) as common-goods on the basis that there are to be sustained as such, and therefore, an unequivocal moratorium on large-scale mining in these ecosystems is necessary. What and whose common-good does large-scale mining in sensitive ecosystems represent? I argue that in the scope of SD, commoditized nature is vulnerable to the volatility of markets and corporate profitability. This thesis is a criticism of SD and the limitations it places on hearing certain kinds of languages and discourses that resist the key assumptions of SD. The case study allows for addressing a gap in the existing literature, which is the distinctive situation of no legally considered ethnic minorities (e.g. small farmers, small miners, and the cities).
Thesis (Master, Cultural Studies) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-24 10:28:50.601