Rural territorial conflicts in the interethnic and intercultural borders of three border departments of Colombia

Abstract

The article analyzes rural territorial conflicts on interethnic and intercultural borderlands in La Guajira, Vichada, and Putumayo in Colombia, focusing on developments from the past two decades. The objectives are to review and adopt concepts of borders linked to identities, territorial planning and governance; to classify, weight and geolocate conflicts using the National Land Agency (ant, Spanish acronym of Agencia Nacional de Tierras) database; and to conduct a comparative analysis to identify similarities, differences and common causalities. Methodologically, the study unfolds in two stages: first, articulating the conceptual framework with the ANT database updated to August 2024; second, a comparative analysis based on typological classifications, georeferencing and weighting. Results show that conflicts concentrate in community-private and intercultural disputes, associated with overlapping territorialities, extractivism, the presence of armed actors and institutional shortcomings. It is concluded that transforming these conflicts requires strengthening intercultural governance and institutional coordination to ensure more equitable and sustainable territorial arrangements.