Cultural Trauma in the Casa de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (cmdhm) in Barrancabermeja, Colombia

Abstract

Objective: This article analyzes the role of La Casa de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (cmdhm) in the process of remembering the cultural trauma of the armed conflict in the Magdalena Medio region. Methodology: This exploratory and descriptive research conducts qualitative analysis and uses semi-structured interviews with creators, guardians, and visitors to the museum, as well as a focal group with creators and participant observation through tours of the site as methods of data collection. Originality: The article shows that the role of the museum in the production of cultural trauma is activated by the senses of the creators, the guides, and the audiences. It understands the place of memory as a cultural product where diverse meanings of the armed conflict dialogue as a living trauma in permanent collective construction. Conclusions: The role played by the museum is the construction of diverse meanings about the trauma of the armed conflict, which due to its historical and geographical magnitude marked the individual and collective history of Colombian society. The particularity of exposing a collective sense of trauma from the perspective of women invites to dialogue with the experience of the visit, the assignment of meanings to the objects, and the construction of one’s own sense of the armed conflict.