Affective capitalism, humanitarianism and extractivism in Colombia: old and new borders for future times

What is it about?

Contemporary Colombian conjuncture encompasses two dynamics. These incorporate social, economic, political and cultural aspects, whose related rationalities are yet to be mapped out and understood in their complex and multi-layered dimensions and registers. On the one hand, as I will explain throughout the text, we have been witness to on-going peace talks between the government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia guerrilla group, a whole set of practices of forgiveness, inaugurations of memory museums, the passing of the victims and land restitution law, as well as the recognition of victims and the effervescence of their movements and organizations. These factors have spiralled victims’ demonstrations and fuelled marches all over the country. On the other hand, there are increased rates of foreign investment in those regions that, until as little as a decade ago, were subject to appalling rates of internal displacement, massacres and disappearances, and which now constitute new borders where global capitalism has been able to reconfigure and increase its rates of capital accumulation. In this article, I analyse the processes referred to above and their complex relationships from the vantage point of a cultural studies interrogation of the affective and the popular, focusing on two Colombian regions: Montes de María and Mapiripán. My goal is to understand how different groups and actors are experiencing these processes in their everyday lives. Here, I include victims and their organizations but also government officials and entrepreneurs related to agro-industry initiatives – mentioned below – today refashioned within the new mantra of corporate responsibility. I want to understand the issue of where people are located and what they are doing, facing, consuming, or resisting in terms of these new challenges. Finally, I wish to offer an analytical study that can capture the everyday textures of these processes in a complex and concrete fashion.

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Why is it important?

The article helps to map out the current conjuncture in Colombia whereby the promises of a postconflict scenario are articulated with the creation of new futures spiralled by both a memory industry and increasing rates of capital accumulation in territories that were once subjected to displacements and massacres. It situates its interrogation in the everyday life of peasant organizations that are facing and challenging the arrival of news forms of agricultural extractivism. These latter dimensions are welcomed and publicly presented as necessary for bringing peace and prosperity to these regions.

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