RUMORS, RESIDUES AND GOVERNANCE IN THE “BEST CORNER OF SOUTH-AMERICA”: A GROUNDED HISTORY OF THE ‘HUMAN’ LIMIT IN COLOMBIA Juan Ricardo Aparicio A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Anthropology Chapel Hill 2009 Approved by: Arturo Escobar Peter Redfield Charles Price Lawrence Grossberg Diane Nelson Abstract Juan Ricardo Aparicio: “Rumors, residues and governance in the “best corner of South-America”: a grounded history of the ‘human’ limit in Colombia” Under the direction of Arturo Escobar and Peter Redfield Starting from two set of events, the emergence of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó in 1997 and the passing of first Law for internally displaced persons in Colombia during the same year, this dissertation analyzes the genealogy, emergence, and mode of functioning of two different but complexly interrelated trajectories. How these two trajectories came to constitute both of these events at this precise moment is the topic of my dissertation The study is based on ethnographic research at key sites of the assemblage (global, national, regional, local), as well as historical research on the genealogies of the most pertinent aspects of both trajectories made possibly by violence but also by the arrival of caring communities and individuals. The dissertation analyzes the convergence of both trajectories within the key decade of the 1990s in Colombia where both a civil society could emerge under the umbrella of constitutional reforms that included for the first time legal frameworks for protecting victim’s and strengthening peace agendas amidst the escalation of violence throughout the country. On one side, it traces the emergence and arrival of a particular apparatus or ‘assemblage’ –that of a ii transnational human rights and humanitarian regime(s)—globally deployed to protect the internally displaced persons worldwide and its particular form in one case in Colombia. On the other hand, it focuses on a ‘local history’ where other types of responses are being currently arranged by peasant organizations interrelated with networks of human rights and humanitarian activism to defend and protect the ‘civilian population’ in the middle of the armed conflict. Here, the main field research focus of the study is a particular Peace Community which emerged in northwest Colombia in the mid 1990s as a response to both historical and intensified regional armed conflict. Through a close description of the manifold economic, political and social practices deployed by the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, the dissertation concludes by affirming the possibility and actualization of a different protection configured from the local histories of “suffering” and thereby exploring the notion of a ‘post-human rights regime’. iii Acknowledgments When thinking about the multiple trajectories and encounters that have brought me to this point, it is almost impossible to trace a unilinear sequence between all of them. I can think of many beginnings and many turning points; but at the end it would be difficult to think of a single trajectory of just one person, author or researcher moving along the road. Although one can think of crucial events are that created the conditions of possibility that brought me up to this point, I am keener to think of a nuanced path full of ambivalences, doubts, fears and messy decisions. I have lived through the tension of moving through these unpredictable trajectories while still believing that one’s works matters in many different ways and for different purposes. What at least seems to be more convincing for now is that these last ten years that extend well before my graduate degrees have helped me to confirm what Foucault once argued about the same idea of ‘an author’. This is, about the same fiction of an author, of a single autonomous individual that can be able to write something ‘new’ or ‘novel’. I have had the best compañeros and compañeras de andanzas that have illuminated in many ways my paths and given me comfort in the hardest moments throughout these years. They have been responsible for many of the ideas materialized in this dissertation, in many of the decisions taken throughout these years, and for many and many inspiring and sublime moments of iv intense questions and interrogations. Thinking, writing, listening and just enjoying life with others has become a most inspiring characteristic of these ten years. For sure, it has been a wide-opening ten years of experiencing the collective and relational understanding of one’s intellectual and affective paths. It is thus precisely this relational nature of one’s path that blurs the sanctified meaning of writing a dissertation: the “I” and “me”, the central tenets not only of behind the idea of an author, but of larger epistemological and ontological questions sedimented at the core of our own modern institutions. So many names, faces and dialogues. So many conversations, so many walks with others; indeed, difficult to think of “oneself” or a single continuous and homogeneous ‘self’. But at the end, as my title page above indicates, there is one author, one voice nurtured by many other voices, and yes, one author. So let me betray this modern configuration and think about the multiple relations by which this dissertation came to be possible. But not only about the dissertation in itself but also and very prominently, about ones’ trajectories as well. So here is my way of naming and honoring these encounters which not only have made this dissertation possible, but have made me believe and hopefully act correspondingly to the relational affective space that I have inhabited through these years. I must start by thanking my family, Luis Carlos, Paula, Diego, Paulita and Jerónimo for their immense patience and ‘irrational’ love towards what sometimes appeared to be as the most arrogant and egoistic brother one can imagine. I thank you for showing me the true love and passion you have given throughout all these years and the v immense support I have always felt in all of my decisions. I just thank you and hope to recover the time I spend writing this dissertation with all of you. Other friends have joined me in these years to create a space of alliances of similar desires, priorities and preoccupations whether they know it or not: Juan Carlos Orrantia, Fernando Escobar, Nadia Moreno, Camilo Quintana, Carlos Andrés Manrique, Tom Zito, Maribel Casas- Cortés, Sebastián Cobarrubias, Dana Powell, Eric Karchmer, Mario Blaser, Michal Osterweil, Marta Cabrera, Elena Yehia, Euyryung Jun, Teo Ballvé, Alejandro Castillejo and Susana Wappenstein. I had the advantage of having two most challenging co-advisors in this dissertation, Arturo Escobar and Peter Redfield, who with their passionate guide believed in my work right from the beginning and devoted to send me the most challenging comments during these years of research. Arturo has been in many ways the key person that has not only opened the possibilities of thinking otherwise, but has also affirmed the need to transform both the personal and institutional spaces accordingly. I wish to thank them for their devotion to a complex intellectual way of thinking that not only believes that what one’s does matters, but that what also matters is with whom we are thinking and for what type of intellectual and political desires. Lawrence Grossberg has been a most influential supporter and configurator of much of the type of intellectual work materialized in this dissertation. Diane Nelson and Charles Price have joined this conversation and contributed enormously to predict the blind spots and blurry areas. Other illuminating mentors throughout these years are John Pickles, Walter Mignolo, Kara Slocum, Silvia Tomaskova, Eduardo Restrepo and Victor Manuel Rodriguez. While in Chapel Hill, Sharon Mújica gave me the opportunity to work as her assistant in her patient commitment to the Latino/a community in North Carolina. I wish also to thank the vi Department of Languages and Sociocultural Studies of Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Los Andes which under the guide of Alcira Saavedra and Carl Langebaek gave me the most privileged intellectual space to write this dissertation in the company of inspiring colleagues and students. I wish to thank the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Tinker Award, the Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation for giving me the opportunity to carry along this dissertation. I cannot be more grateful to Michael Davis who with his generosity and patience, proof-read my still inaccurate English abilities. Throughout my itineraries, many persons have become authentic guides and interlocutors of my interrogations. In San José de Apartadó, el Negro, Marina, Renato, Jairo, Wilson, Gerardo, Martha, Juana, don Anibal, Pino, Aarón, among many more, including the five children that once celebrated my birthday in San Jose(sito), have been there to teach me about the rigors of living in permanent threat but most of all, of surviving, laughing and still struggling for their personal and collective dreams. I am grateful to Eduar and Padre Giraldo for all the times in which we discussed Western and Latin-American philosophy, christianism and the actual predicaments of Colombia and the CPSJA while walking through the muddy paths of the Serrania del Abibe. I wish to thank Gloria Cuartas for her confidence she gave me when I first talked with her way before I ever thought of this dissertation. All three are essential nodes of this dissertation and I thank them for their intense passion and commitment to the popular struggles in Colombia. Through the Pacific region, Carlos Rosero and Josu have been illuminating and inspiring guides for thinking about the complex struggles and predicaments of social movements in Colombia.