Intersectional resistance to displacement amid Colombia’s turn to the Left: Capitalism, socialism, and migration in Twenty-first Century South America

Keywords: Colombia, Venezuela, migration, capitalism, socialism, political economy
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

This paper analyzes the political economies of migration amid capitalism and socialism, by highlighting community movements reacting to gendered, racialized, and class violence associated with forced displacement. In Latin America, Colombia’s capitalist ‘system of violence’ (Richani 2002) is at the root of the country having one of the world’s largest internally displaced populations at over 5 million, while over 6 million Venezuelans have fled amid their country’s experiment with ‘Twenty-first Century Socialism.’ While Venezuela was once a refuge for impoverished and displaced Colombians, Colombia now hosts the largest number of Venezuelan emigrants. Meanwhile, in 2022 Colombia elected its first leftist government, whose socialist platform intends to end violations against all migrants. Rooted in the methodology of ethnographic performance geography, this paper draws from accompaniment of and interviews with women in two Colombian organizations, each located in distinct regional epicenters of the country’s armed conflict. The first is a women’s empowerment organization comprised of Venezuelan migrants and impoverished Colombians in Norte de Santander, along the Venezuelan border. The second is a ‘peace community’ defending its territory despite waves of assassinations and displacement in the Urabá region. The paper analyzes how, in both cases, women oftentimes verbally reaffirm patriarchal gender roles central to capitalist reproduction yet implicitly embody feminist and socialist practice in their organizations. Considering the relationship between discourse, practice, and political economy, I trace community perceptions of Colombia’s recent turn to the Left; implications of the new government’s political economy for intersectional resistance to displacement; and social movements’ evolving practices.