Special ZEF Colloquium on Research in Colombia

September 29, 2021 | 11:00 h - 13:00 h

Presentation 1:
Topic: Conceptualization of collective memory from environmental thinking
Speaker: Estefanía Montoya Domínguez (doctoral student in the DSSP project and PhD candidate at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota)

Abstract: As a field of studies, collective memory has addressed the past of human groups that have been immersed in political conflicts and wars in recent times. However, it has worked transversally what has to do with disputes over the assets and functionalities of ecosystems or the so-called environmental conflicts.
Therefore, this work proposes to carry out a contribution, from the epistemological and methodological spheres, to the area of collective memory, so that it addresses the past of environmental conflicts.
To do this, work will be done based on a case study in the Arauca region, a department of Colombia, related to the extraction of hydrocarbons and the effects on ecosystems and human communities.

Estefanía Montoya Domínguez sociologist, master's degree in Environment and Development and Ph.D. student in Environmental Studies at the National University of Colombia, Bogotá headquarters. Member of the Observatory of Environmental Conflicts of the Institute of Environmental Studies of the same university.


Presentation 2:
Topic: Targeting intimacy: gender, environment and love in the FARC propaganda during the Colombian armed conflict
Speaker: Clément Roux (doctoral student in the DSSP project and PhD candidate at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.)

Abstract: Throughout its extensive war against the Colombian State (1964-2016), the Marxist-Leninist guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has made a significant effort to develop and maintain a propaganda strategy despite difficult conditions of insurgency.
Among other activities, the guerrillas broadcasted radio programs from the jungles, published a printed magazine during almost 40 years, distributed compilations of revolutionary music and painted graffities on the walls of public universities.
This research analyzes the FARC “propaganda” as a whole, considering the term in a broad and not necessarily pejorative way. It takes into account its multiple dimensions and its context of production, diffusion, reception and circulation, in order to draw conclusions about how the Colombian conflict can be successfully transformed into a non-violent one. The presentation will focus on three main elements that structured FARC discourses between 2002 and 2016: the representation of female combatants, the construction of an environmental paradigm and the militarization of intimacy.

Clément Roux is a PHD candidate in Social and Human sciences at the National University of Colombia, where he has been since 2019. Before that he worked for more than 10 years as a communication officer for various international organizations. His research focuses on war propaganda, communication strategies of non-state armed actors and more specifically on the former Colombian guerrilla of the FARC and its transition to a non-violent political party.


Presentation 3:
Topic: Shaping the relationship between rurality and the Colombian health system, 1993-2020
Speaker: Sandra Milena Montoya-Sanabria (doctoral student in the DSSP Project and PhD candidate at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia)

Abstract: There is a diversity of contradictory positions about how to understand "the rurality" in the current Colombian development model. Also, there is a potential relationship between the ineffectiveness of administrative decentralization processes, the emergence of health inequalities and inequities in the country's rural areas, and the facts before, during, and after the peace agreement between FARC-EP and the Colombian government. Consequently, the relationship between rurality and health systems emerges as a research problem from the need to recognize in development models, alternative dimensions of rurality. This concern is situated in the social, environmental, economic, historical, political, and cultural phenomenon, that must overcome its traditional vision, restricted to the location of territories in geographical areas other than urban conglomerates.
For this, the objective of this research is to identify the problems to be overcome and relevant challenges to be faced in the health system in the period from 1993 to 2020, in order to adopt characteristics, programs, and care models that provide current and comprehensive responses to rurality in Colombia.
This study has a mixed design - concurrent and independent. It is composed of three methodological phases: the first phase, the exploration of epistemological and methodological approaches to rurality and the research agenda of health systems; the second phase, the quantitative configuration of rurality in Colombia and its relationship with the health system, and the third phase: the hermeneutical approach oriented by grounded theory.

Sandra Milena Montoya-Sanabria, RN, MSc in Public Health and Epidemiology, candidate to Ph.D. of Public Health of the National University of Colombia (UNal). Actually, she is a fellow of Doctoral Studies Support Program (DSSP) on “Environmental peacebuilding and development in Colombia” (Cooperation Agreement between ZEF and IDEA-UNal).

Registration: please send an email to presse.zef(at)uni-bonn.de (subject: Registration Colombia, Sep. 29)