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Carleton University Citizenship and Violence in Antioquia, Colombia A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree of Master of Arts Institute of Political Economy by Daniel Tubb Ottawa, Ontario September, 2009 ©2009, Daniel Tubb Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-60272-0 Our file Notre r6f6rence ISBN: 978-0-494-60272-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Nnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de ceile-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondares ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1+1 Canada Abstract This thesis explores violence and citizenship in the Colombian department of Antioquia during La Violencia (1946 to 1953). At that time the capital of the department, Medellin, was experiencing rapid industrialization and a booming economy while in peripheral areas there were extremely high levels of violence. The racialized regional identity of antioquehidad makes these differences intelligible. Residents in Medellin saw themselves as sharing an imagined racial unity which emphasized hard work, morality, whiteness, capitalism, and civilization. Antioquenidad provided the justification for interventions in the city to create workers and to strengthen the population. In the peripheral areas residents were imagined and constructed as violent deviant 'others'. Mutilation, death, and dismemberment were all practiced on the bodies of landless peasants, Afro-descendants, and Indigenous people. I read the terror on the periphery and the programs of social hygiene in the city as part of the same governmentality, which targeted those who deviated from antioquenidad. ii Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the myriad of people who shared their lives and stories with me in Medellin. While my thesis is not their stories, something I'm still unsure how to write, I was inspired by the dedication, insight, and hope I found. My thesis would not have been possible without the help, support, and patience of many people. I wish to acknowledge specifically Aleja Mesa Giraldo whose excitement and discussions of Antioquia sparked my initial interest in the region. Her introductions to friends and family in Medellin were invaluable. My project would have been impossible without the help of Esteban, Fredy, Ruben, and Cesar in Medellin. I also want to thank Elba Maldonado for accompanying me my first few days in Bogota and my last few days in Medellin. Many thanks are due to my supervisor Cristina Rojas for her dinners, conversations, books, and insights. Professor Rianne Mahon provided encouragement and insights on the writing process, as well as useful suggestions on the different iterations of this project. Deborah Rachlis provided a lot of support and insisted tliat I read Agamben. Erin Seatter's meticulous copy editing was invaluable, although any mistakes remain my own. My thesis would not have been written without Donna Coghill at the Institute of Political Economy, whose hours of patience, gallons of coffee, advice, and threats helped me finish. Finally, I thank my parents, Louise Livingstone and Steve Tubb, whose conversations, questions, editing, and patience helped me complete this process. I dedicate my thesis to Mirlande Demers. in Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv List of Tables vi List of Figures vii Introduction i Chapter One: Governmentality and the Corporality of Citizenship 10 Chapter Two: La Violencia in Colombia and Antioquia 33 Interpreting La Violencia 41 Chapter Three: Antioquenidad 57 Two Antioquias 61 Urabd and Western Antioquia 66 Chapter Four: Social Hygiene and Catholic Paternalism in Medellin 70 Social Hygiene 75 Catholic Paternalism 78 Controlling the deviant, creating the antioqueno 81 Chapter Five: Corporality of violence at the periphery 84 Violence in Urabd and Western Antioquia 85 Corporality of violence 91 Conclusion 100 Directions for future research 105 Appendix 1: Notes on Method in Appendix 1: Tables and Figures 117 Works Cited 124 iv List of Tables Table i: Distribution of deaths by department (1946to 1957) 117 Table 2: Regional distribution of deaths in Antioquia (1949 to 1953) 117 Table y. Temporal distribution of deaths in Colombia (1948 to 1966) 118 Table 4: Reported deaths by year andsubregion in Antioquia, 1949 to 1953 119 v List of Figures Figure i: Deaths attributed to the violence in Colombia (1948 to 1966) 119 Figure 2: Regional distribution of deaths inAntioquia (1949 to 1953) per 100,000 120 Figure 3: Regional distribution of deaths in Antioquia by year 120 Figure 4: Map of Colombia 121 Figure y Map of Antioquia 122 Figure 6: Regions of Antioquia 122 Figure 7: Peripheral municipalities of Antioquia 123 Figure 8: Deaths due to Violence, 1949 to 1953 123 vi Introduction The central theme of this thesis is violence and citizenship in the Colombian department1 of Antioquia2 between 1946 and 1953. These years were the height of a period of Colombian history known as La Violencia (The Violence)3 during which time more than 200,000 people lost their lives and two million more were forcibly displaced from their homes. Although the department experienced the third highest number of deaths related to La Violencia, with an estimated 26,115 people losing their lives between 1946 and 1957, violence did not have a uniform impact on the department. My thesis builds on the following paradox present in the department of Antioquia.5 In the core municipalities, located in the south-west and around the capital city of Medellin, there was little violence. Meanwhile, in the peripheral areas of the department—located to the north in the tropical region on the Caribbean coast of Uraba, in west in the region around the Bajo Cauca river valley and the city of Urrao, and in the east in the region of the Magdalena Medio river Valley around Puerto Berrio—violence was more severe.6 A political administrative region roughly equivalent to a Canadian province. Antioquia is Colombia's second largest department by population and is located on the north western corner of the country. It borders on the north die Caribbean and die departments of Cordoba, Sucre, and Bolivar, on the east die Magdalena Medio river and the departments of Santander and Boyaca, on die soudi the de partment of Caldas, and on die west the department of Choco. See Figure 4: Map of Colombia, p. 121. Medellin has long been Colombia's second largest city, as well as an economic, industrial, and cultural rival to Bogota. All words in italics are Spanish. Translations appear immediately after die first usage in parenthesis. All trans lations are my own unless noted otherwise. When I use Spanish words, La Violencia, antioqueno, and antioquenidad, it is because die English translations do not capture the full meaning. Place names are not it alicized, and generally I use die Spanish names, except for 'Western Antioquia.' See Table 1: Distribution of deaths by department (1946 to 1957), p. 117. 5 See Figure 6: Regions of Antioquia, p. 122. s Roldan, 1998, p. 7 1 2 The paradox was that while the capital city of Medellfn underwent rapid industrialization in textile production, and the core coffee regions experienced a boom in coffee production, the newly settled departmental periphery experienced high levels of violence which made these regions among the bloodiest in the country. Violence was present in one area and yet not the other. My thesis explores this paradox by examining the governance of citizenship and violence in the department. In Medellfn, governmental programs focused on improving and disciplining the bodies workers, women, and the poor. In peripheral areas of the department the bodies of residents, often landless peasants, Afro-descendants, and Indigenous people, became objects of violence. I describe and link these two phenomena using a governmentality perspective. I explore how biological and political life was governed in the city of Medellfn, which was imagined as a clean, hygienic, and civilized space, and in the colonial periphery, which was imagined as a dangerous, savage, dirty, and seductive other space. I suggest that the construction of a racialized regional identity of antioquenidad makes the different practices of governance of the body intelligible. In the Antioquian imagination the department was divided in two. The first Antioquia was located in the core areas around the city of Medellfn.

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