Return to rebuild the territory and dignify life: The experience of the Community Council of the Cacarica River Basin

Abstract

This article presents the actions that the communities from the Community Council of the Cacarica river basin, Bajo Atrato, Chocó, carry out to rebuild their territory and dignify their lives, after being victims of forced displacement in 1997. Through organization, return, and reconstruction processes communities develop new territorialities, re-signify and rebuild their lives. These actions emerge from the implementation of external and personal knowledge about identity and rights of these communities, which enable them to resist the logics of “development” that caused their displacement.