Collective action, political identites and armed conflict: the ethnization of a black community in the norte of the Cauca

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the production process of nonviolent collective action in a Afro-Colombian community in response to the social, political, environmental, labor conflicts that have jeopardized their stay in the territory. The artvile presents elements of analysis of ethnographic work conducted by the author in 2012 and 2013 in the municipality of Santander de Quilichao are presented. The theoretical development of the paper takes the concept proposed by Elisabeth Wood on “social processes of the Civil War” (2010) to establish correspondences between social dynamics generated by conflict –increased since 2008 in the region– and processes of collective action and identity agency of Afro-Colombians. Some of these conflicts are territorial tensions between different social actors in the processes of legalization and expansion of ethnic territories, mining, the process of Land Consolidation; and the strengthening of interethnic organizational alliances, and organizational process of black communities in the area. Under these conditions, the narratives of “ancestral”, “being black” and “autonomy” have become guiding axes of collective action that legitimizes the territorial presence of the study community and its demand in the access to rights such as collective ownership and consultation.