Conviviality between Post-Conflict and Polycrisis. Peasant Alternative Ecologies in an emerging Sacrifice Zone in Colombia

Abstract (English)

Sacrifice Zones are understood as territories of abandonment, where landscapes are left behind after their ecosystems have been destroyed. In some (post-)conflict regions of Colombia, it seems to be possible to witness such Sacrifice Zones in the Making, as various disastrous and polycrisis-like phenomena interact. The Urabá region in north-western Colombia is a case in point: paramilitary groups have violently taken over public order and control land use, while illegal road construction and deforestation prepare the ground for extractivist activities, which are supported by the state granting of mining licenses and the construction of large infrastructure like oversea ports. At the same time, extreme weather and climate phenomena such as heavy rainfall and increased average temperatures are leading to floods, landslides and loss of crops. Interestingly, these disastrous phenomena occur in conjunction, overlap and reinforce each other in terms of actor constellations, motivations and practices, favoring paramilitary, extractivist and partly state actors and their interests, while at the same time threatening highly sensitive ecosystems as well as peasant subsistence economies and lifestyles.
Based on several years of repeated fieldwork in the Urabá region, this paper explores the complex convivial configurations in Colombian rural regions on the intersection of (post-)conflict dynamics, environmental destruction, extractivist activities and peasant territorialities: 1. how and with what consequences do various disastrous and polycrisis phenomena interact with each other in this region? 2. how is environmental destruction socially produced, productive and commodified in this emerging sacrifice zone? 3. which territorial visions of peaceful, alternative ecologies exist and resist the disastrous destruction? The paper addresses territoriality both as a politics and political technology of environmental exploitation and destruction and as a communal relationship between peasants, land and peaceful visions of more-than-human coexistence.