Heirs of the post-conflict: Political subjectivation and audiovisual regimes in three Colombian documentaries

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present the results of a research that sought to identify some characteristics of the political culture in Colombia considering the post-conflict context based on the analysis of political subjectivation processes and the visual regimes found in the documentaries Pecados de mi padre (2009), La historia que no contaron (2009), and Pizarro (2016). To that end, the hegemony category is used as a key concept to understand politics as the exercise and battle for power, which occurs on a daily basis, and which materializes in cultural productions and in the subjectivation processes. Methodologically, five main lines of analysis were considered: the revolutionary struggle, paramilitarism, drug trafficking, peace processes, and political participation. The shaping of an introspective view with regard to the individual's privacy was identified, which manages to politicize the privace and radical experience of the subject. However, the social aspect is pushed to the background, which accounts for the existence of audiovisual regimes that split the ways in which the armed conflict is seen. Thus, in the cultural field, traditional political elites achieved leadership, insofar as they managed to position audiovisuals, which are part of a common sense that blurs the structural conditions that hinder the creation of an equitable country and that naturalize this situation. However, the subjective search may be a condition for the articulation of alternate views of the world that enable new political subjectivation processes.