By combining chronological coverage, analytical breadth, and interdisciplinary approaches, these two volumes—Histories of Solitude and Histories of Perplexity—study the histories of Colombia over the past two centuries as illustrations of the histories of democracy across the Americas.
The volumes bring together over 40 scholars based in Colombia, the United States, England, and Canada working in various disciplines to discuss how a country that has been consistently presented as a rarity in Latin America provides critical examples to re-examine major historical problems: republicanism and liberalism; export economies and agrarian modernization; populism and cultural politics of state formation; revolutionary and counterinsurgent Cold War violence; neoliberal reforms and urban development; popular mobilization and counterhegemonic public spheres; political ecologies and environmental struggles; and labors of memory and the challenge of reconciliation. Contributors are sensitive to questions of subjectivity and discourse, observant of ethnographic details and micro-politics, and attuned to macro-perspectives such as transnational and global histories.
These volumes offer fresh perspectives on Colombia and will be of great value to those interested in Latin American and Caribbean history.
Preface: Colombia Revisited Lina Britto and A. Ricardo López-Pedreros Introduction: Histories of Perplexity Lina Britto and A. Ricardo López-Pedreros Part 1: Identifying Multiculturalism 1. 1. A Conversation with an Afrodiasporic Humanist: Manuel Zapata Olivella in His Own Words William Mina 2. 2. Black Upward Mobility, Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Social Whitening in Colombia Mara Viveros Vigoya 3. 3. From Native to Raizal: Indigeneity and Anglophone Afro-Caribbean Heritage of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina Sharika D. Crawford 4. 4. Campesino: A Contested Identity, a Vibrant Subjectivity in Colombia Diana Bocarejo and Carlos del Cairo Part 2: Surveying the Territorial State 5. 5. A Country of Forests: Territorial State Building in Colombia Claudia Leal 6. Collective Land Titling and Neoliberalism in the Colombian Pacific Region Marta Isabel Domínguez 7. From Carbon Extraction to Blue and Green Extractivism: Demands of Radical Socio-Environmental Transformations in the Guajira Astrid Ulloa Part 3: Unpacking Drug Trafficking 8. 8. Diplomacy, Drug Trafficking, and Political Repression: César Gaviria’s Administration in Colombia, 1990-1994 Eduardo Sáenz Rovner 9. 9. Narcotrafficking, Immigration, and Salsa Music: The Cali-New York Connection Alejandro Ulloa Sanmiguel 10. MONA®CO: Conversations on Narco-Phenomena and Contemporary Art in Colombia Santiago Rueda and Harold Ortiz Part 4: Watching the Media 1111. The Accidental Persona: The Media and Pablo Escobar Catalina Uribe Rincón 1212. The Moral Vision and Moral Performance of Photojournalist Jesús Abad Colorado Alexander L. Fattal 1313. Community Radio Stations and the Construction of Modern Indigeneity in Cauca Diego Cortés 1414. Social Media and the Musical Nation: Hegemonic Cooptation and the Making of a National Repertoire Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste Part 5: Revisiting the Armed Conflict 1515. Gendered Activism and Elite Formation on the Colombian Frontier: Lessons from the Life of Fátima Muriel Winifred Tate 1616. Coercive Brokerage: The Rise and Fall of Colombian Paramilitary Commander Hernán Giraldo, 1976-2006 Francisco Gutiérrez Sanín 1717. The Conflicts of Coca: Women’s Struggles for Economic Autonomy in Coca-Growing Regions Estefanía Ciro Part 6: Laboring with Memory 1818. Fluctuations and Paradoxes in Colombia’s Long Cycle of Historical Memory, 2005-2021 María Emma Wills Obregón 1919. Rendering the Unheard-of Believable: On Fragmentos by Doris Salcedo and Duelos by Clemencia Echeverri María del Rosario Acosta López 2020. “We gave them names:” Exhumations, Peace Agreement and Social Reparation in Bojayá, Chocó Pilar Riaño Alcalá in collaboration with José de la Cruz Valencia, Natalia Quiceno, and Camila Orjuela
Lina Britto is Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University. She is the author of Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia’s First Drug Paradise. A. Ricardo López-Pedreros is Professor of History at Western Washington University. He has been a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at University College London. He is the author of Makers of Democracy: A Transnational History of the Middle Class in Colombia.
