Territorialities in the post-conflict: study case of the Cedro Cocido farm, Cordoba, Colombia

Author(s)

Marcia Arteaga Pertuz

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo. 2021-04-20.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Instituto de Políticas Públicas e Relações Internacionais. São Paulo
• Defense date: 2020-06-18
• Advisor: Bernardo Mançano Fernandes

Abstract

In the context of the so-called transitional justice, in Colombia the concern was renewed for reflecting on some of the central themes of research in Geography in the Colombian and Latin American tradition: land and territorial conflicts. In the particular case of Colombia, violence has been used explicitly as an instrument of power, concentration of land and expansion of the latifundia. During the last decade of the 20th century, in the northern region of the country, especially in the departments of Córdoba and Urabá, the paramilitary self- defenses began their process of territorial expansion. The links with the political elite and landowners in the region, contributed to its rapid establishment, as well as to the exercise of social control. The territorialities of conflict and terror of the paramilitary group led by the “Clan de los Hermanos Castaño-Gil”, materialized in disappearances, murders, massacres, eviction and forced abandonment of land and an intense rural exodus, the product of displacement suffered by peasant families. Farms such as “Cedro Cocido”, located in the department of Córdoba, have been used since the late 1980s as paramilitary bases. The intense presence of paramilitary structures in the area, increased the rates of violence in the countryside, considerably more intense during this period, until the first five-year period of 2000. Colombian transitional justice arises in 2005 with the possibility of dismantling the paramilitary front in the country and allowing both the demobilization of its members and the reparation of victims of conflict and armed violence as a result of the struggle for power. This research aims to understand the territorialities of conflict and post-conflict that emerge from the historical process of armed struggle and the implementation of transitional justice, which began in the country in 2005 and returns to be the center of attention in 2012 by the most recent process of peace that happened in the country. The case study is carried out at Fazenda Cedro Cocido, which today constitutes one of the main areas subject to land repair and restitution at national level, supported by the Victims and Land Restitution Law (Law 1448/2012), an instrument for repairing damage to the victims of the armed conflict. The return of peasant families to the lands and the recovery of property rights over them, as well as the possibility of (re) building their lives, represent a central theme for our research. It seeks to understand the territorial transformations and the games of power that arise in such a complex context of transition between the situation of the conflict to the post-conflict situation, still in a characteristically violent reality. In this sense, the territory must be considered as multidimensional and multiscale, as well as a social product resulting from the power struggles that take place in space. These three elements are indispensable to answer a fundamental question: what are the post-conflict territorialities that have arisen within the scope of transitional justice and the country's National Land Restitution Policy? (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 18/09824-0 - Territorialities in the post-conflict: study case of the Cedro Cocido Farm, Córdoba-Colombia
• Grantee: Marcia Arteaga Pertuz
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master