Beyond displacement: territorialization in the port city of Buenaventura, Colombia

Abstract

In (post-)conflict contexts, territorial struggles are strongly associated with the displacement of communities, whether rural–urban or intra-urban. Here, we argue for refocusing attention on territorialization processes as a means of understanding the dynamics and consequences of contestation between vulnerable minority communities and powerful groups. Focusing on the majority Afro-Colombian city of Buenaventura in the Pacific coastal region, which is simultaneously Colombia’s most significant port and one of its most neglected cities, we explore processes of de- and re-territorialization. Beyond tropes of displacement and resistance, territorialization offers a conceptual lens for understanding territorial struggles as complex events, in terms of the physical and symbolic effects of de-territorialization on communities and individuals, and re-territorialization as plural, disruptive practices of re-existence. This suggests the need to focus on everyday experiences as well as specific time- and space-bound moments of struggle. In this way, a territorialization approach permits a deeper understanding of the social production of territory with multiple elements relating to identity, symbolic practices and time–space dimensions.