SpringerLink
Log in

Introduction: Affected by Conflict

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Intersections of Affect, Memory, and Privilege in Bogota, Colombia

Part of the book series: Memory Politics and Transitional Justice ((MPTJ))

  • 14 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter explores the intersections of affect, memory, and privilege among upper middle-class Bogotanos. The central topics are the relationship of affect and memory, an outline of the upper middle-class position as between the not yet and the not anymore, and an understanding of conflict based on emic interpretations. The chapter introduces my interlocutors, our connection, and their experiences with the Colombian conflict. The chapter ends with an overview of the structure of the book.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
EUR 32.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or Ebook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Free ship** worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    In the following, I will use FARC-EP to denominate the guerrilla group, while FARC identifies the political party that was established by the guerrilla during the peace negotiations with the government of Juan Manuel Santos.

  2. 2.

    Most of my interlocutors preferred to stick with their actual first names, albeit some use a pseudonym. Whenever they refer to other people, I changed the names to assure anonymity, as they did not have an opportunity to decide for themselves.

  3. 3.

    Especially in the aftermath of the disarming of the FARC-EP, these have been directed predominantly at environmental activists, making some investigators claim that the Colombian conflict is to a great degree also an ecological one (i.e., Molano, 2001; Lyons, 2018).

  4. 4.

    This is, of course, assuming an upwardly mobile perspective. While it could seem promising to pay less for the services, moving down an estrato or two nevertheless also implies a severing of social ties with the former neighbors and the prestige associated with the respective living areas.

  5. 5.

    Both translate as ‘to be,’ although the later refers to changeable, temporary circumstances, whereas the first refers to permanent ones.

  6. 6.

    The decision for a specific estrato may have different reasons: people may live in estrato 4 because that is what they can afford, or because that is what they are willing to pay, that is, contribute to the system.

  7. 7.

    See Dan Bar-On’s (2007) essay about the religious underpinnings of reconciliation and its psycho-social and legal implications.

Bibliography

  • ¿Qué es la clase media en Colombia? (2019, March 15). Revista Pesquisa Javeriana. Retrieved from https://www.javeriana.edu.co/pesquisa/que-es-la-clase-media-en-colombia/

  • Abu-Lughod, L. (1991). Writing against Culture. In R. G. Fox (Ed.), Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present. School of American Research Press: Distributed by the University of Washington Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ahmed, S. (2014). The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2nd ed.). Edinburgh Univ. Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Allier Montaño, E., & Crenzel, E. (Eds.). (2016). Las luchas por la memoria en América Latina: Historia reciente y violencia política (Primera edición). Iberoamericana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, B. R. (2016). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Revised edition). Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands: The new mestiza = La frontera (1st ed.). Aunt Lute Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Así se hizo Fragmentos, el ‘contra-monumento’ de Doris Salcedo. (2018, December 17). Retrieved from https://www.semana.com/cultura/multimedia/la-historia-de-fragmentos-la-obra-de-doris-salcedo-con-las-armas-de-las-farc/595253#

  • Assmann, A. (2007). Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit: Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik. Bpb, Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung.

    Google Scholar 

  • Assmann, J. (2013). Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (7.). Verlag H.C.Beck.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ayata, B., Harders, C., Özkaya, D., & Wahba, D. (2019). Interviews as Situated Affective Encounters. A Relational and Processual Approach for Empirical Research on Affect, Emotion and Politics. In A. Kahl (Ed.), Analyzing Affective Societies: Methods and Methodologies (pp. 63–77). Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Bar-On, D. (2007). Reconciliation Revisited for More Conceptual and Empirical Clarity. In J. Beč-Neumann (Ed.), Darkness at Noon. War Crimes, Genocide and Memory (pp. 62–84). Centre for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Behar, R. (2012). The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks your Heart (12.). Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Behar, R., & Gordon, D. A. (Eds.). (1995). Women Writing Culture. University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berg, U. D., & Ramos-Zayas, A. Y. (2015). Racializing Affect: A Theoretical Proposition. Current Anthropology, 56(5), 654–677. https://doi.org/10.1086/683053

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berlant, L. (2008). Thinking about Feeling Historical. Emotion, Space and Society, 1(1), 4–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2008.08.006

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berlant, L., & Stewart, K. (2019). The Hundreds. Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Blejmar, J. (2016). Playful Memories: The Autofictional Turn in Post-dictatorship Argentina (1st ed.). Springer International Pub.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Blickstein, T. (2019). Affects of Racialization. In J. Slaby & C. von Scheve (Eds.), Affective Societies: Key Concepts (1.) (pp. 152–165). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bloom-Christen, A., & Grunow, H. (2022). What’s (in) a Vignette? History, Functions, and Development of an Elusive Ethnographic Sub-genre. Ethnos, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2022.2052927

  • Bond, L., Craps, S., & Vermeulen, P. (2017). Introduction: Memory on the Move. In L. Bond, S. Craps, & P. Vermeulen (Eds.), Memory Unbound: Tracing the Dynamics of Memory Studies (pp. 1–26). Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (2008). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (R. Nice, Trans.). Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (2010). Outline of a Theory of Practice (25. Printing). Cambridge Univ. Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourgois, P. I. (2003). In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bouvier, V. M. (Ed.). (2009). Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War. United States Institute of Peace.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bräuchler, B. (2015). The Cultural Dimension of Peace: Decentralization and Reconciliation in Indonesia. Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Brennan, T. (2004). The Transmission of Affect. Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cerón-Anaya, H. (2019). Privilege at Play: Class, Race, Gender, and Golf in Mexico. Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cvetkovich, A. (2012). Depression. A Public Feeling. Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ehrenreich, B. (1989). Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class (1.). Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erll, A. (2003). Literatur, Erinnerung, Identität: Theoriekonzeptionen und Fallstudien. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erll, A., & Rigney, A. (Eds.). (2009). Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory. de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Espinosa Moreno, F. (2021). De damnificados a víctimas: La construcción del problema público de los afectados por la violencia en Colombia (1946–1991) (1st ed.). Editorial Universidad del Rosario.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fanon, F. (2004). The Wretched of the Earth (R. Philcox, Trans.). Grove Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fanon, F. (2008). Black Skin, White Masks (1.). Grove Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feld, C. (2016). Trayectorias y desafíos de los estudios sobre memoria en Argentina. Cuadernos Del IDES, 32, 4–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, C. (2012). Neoliberal Respectability. Entrepreneurial Marriage, Affective Labor, and a New Caribbean Middle Class. In R. Heiman, C. Freeman, & M. Liechty (Eds.), The Global Middle Classes: Theorizing Through Ethnography (pp. 85–115). SAR Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freyre, G. (1986). The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization (2.). Univ. of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fried, G. (2016). State Terrorism and the Politics of Memory in Latin America: Transmissions Across the Generations of Post-dictatorship Uruguay, 1984–2004. Cambria Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallardo, M., & Saban, K. (2021). Búsquedas estéticas para el afecto y la desafección. La memoria de hijos de sobrevivientes y desaparecidos en Chile y Argentina. Acta Poética, 42(1), 13. https://doi.org/10.19130/iifl.ap.2021.1.883

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaztambide-Fernández, R. A., & Howard, A. (2012). Access, Status, and Representation: Some Reflections from Two Ethnographic Studies of Elite Schools: Elite Schools. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 43(3), 289–305. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1492.2012.01181.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halbwachs, M. (2012). Das Gedächtnis und seine sozialen Bedingungen (L. Geldsetzer, Trans.; [Nachdr.], Lizenzausg). Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heiman, R., Liechty, M., & Freeman, C. (2012). Introduction. Charting an Anthropology of the Middle Classes. In R. Heiman, C. Freeman, & M. Liechty (Eds.), The Global Middle Classes: Theorizing Through Ethnography (pp. 3–29). SAR Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirsch, M. (2012). The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture after the Holocaust. Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holgersson, U. (2017). Class: Feminist and Cultural Perspectives. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hopenhayn, M. (2010). Clases medias en América Latina: Sujeto difuso en busca de definición. In A. Bárcena & N. Serra (Eds.), Clases medias y desarrollo en América Latina (pp. 11–37). CEPAL: [Madrid]: Secretaría General Iberoamericana; Fundació CIDOB.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huyssen, A. (2003). Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Stanford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Jara, D. (2016). Children and the Afterlife of State Violence: Memories of Dictatorship. Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Jelin, E. (2003). State repression and the labors of memory (J. Rein & M. Godoy-Anativia, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jessel, E. (2017, November 9). “If I’m stratum 3, that’s who I am”: Inside Bogotá’s social stratification system. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/09/bogota-colombia-social-stratification-system

  • Landsberg, A. (2004). Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lazarra, M. J. (2021). El giro de la memoria en América Latina: Trayectorias, desafíos, futuros. In J. Poblete (Ed.), Nuevos acercamientos a los estudios latinoamericanos: Cultura y poder (pp. 31–60). Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales. CLACSO. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2v88dft

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • López, A. R. (2019). Makers of Democracy: The Transnational Formation of the Middle Classes in Colombia. Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lutz, C. (2017). What Matters. Cultural Anthropology, 32(2), 181–191. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.2.02

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lyons, K. (2018). Chemical Warfare in Colombia, Evidentiary Ecologies and Senti-actuando Practices of Justice. Social Studies of Science, 48(3), 414–437. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312718765375

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marchetti, F. (2021). Exploring Embodied Memories of Terror Through a Multimodal Research-Creation Practice. Multimodality & Society, 1(3), 366–390. https://doi.org/10.1177/26349795211042767

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. (1973). Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (1–3). Dietz Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Molano, A. (2001). Desterrados: Crónicas del desarraigo (1.). El Ancora Editores.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nader, L. (1972). Up the Anthropologist: Perspectives Gained from Studying Up. In I. D. Hymes (Ed.), Reinventing Anthropology (pp. 284–311). Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Navaro-Yashin, Y. (2017). Diversifying Affect. Cultural Anthropology, 32(2), 209–214. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.2.05

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ortner, S. B. (2006). Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power, and the Acting Subject. Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Owensby, B. P. (1999). Intimate Ironies: Modernity and the Making of Middle-Class Lives in Brazil. Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker, D. S. (2013). Introduction. The Making and Endless Remaking of the Middle Class. In D. S. Parker & L. E. Walker (Eds.), Latin America’s Middle Class: Unsettled Debates and New Histories (pp. 1–22). Lexington Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Portelli, A. (1991). The Death of Luigi Trastulli, and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History. State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramos-Zayas, A. Y. (2020). Parenting Empires: Class, Whiteness, and the Moral Economy of Privilege in Latin America. Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rothberg, M. (2019). The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators. Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salvi, V. (2014). “Todos somos víctimas”. Transformaciones en la narrativa de la “reconciliación nacional” en la Argentina. In J. L. Lanata (Ed.), Prácticas Genocidas y Violencia Estatal (pp. 154–164). IIDyPCa/CONICET/UNR.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sánchez Meertens, A. (2017). Los saberes de la guerra: Memoria y conocimiento intergeneracional del conflicto en Colombia (1.). Siglo del Hombre Editores: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Centro Editorial Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Sede Bogotá.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sánchez, G., & Peñaranda, R. (Eds.). (2007). Pasado y presente de la violencia en Colombia. La Carreta Editores: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scheper-Hughes, N. (2009). Death Without Wee**: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Univ. of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shakow, M. (2014). Along the Bolivian Highway: Social Mobility and Political Culture in a New Middle Class. University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Solana, M. (2022). Sobre la distinción entre affectos y emociones. Ventajas y limitaciones. In L. Anapios & C. Hammerschmidt (Eds.), Política, afectos e identidades en América Latina (pp. 151–161). CLACSO.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Stern, W. C. (2021). Entre el cielo y el suelo: Las identidades elásticas de las clases medias (Santiago de Chile, 1932–1962) (Primera edición). RIL Editores.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary Affects. Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Stodulka, T., Dinkelaker, S., & Thajib, F. (2019). Fieldwork, Ethnography and the Empirical Affect Montage. In A. Kahl (Ed.), Analyzing Affective Societies: Methods and Methodologies (pp. 279–295). Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Svampa, M. (2008). Los que ganaron: La vida en los countries y barrios privados. Editorial Biblos.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tate, W. (2007). Counting the Dead. The Culture and Politics of Human Rights Activism in Colombia. University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taussig, M. (2005). Law in a Lawless Land: Diary of a “limpieza” in Colombia. University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Theidon, K. S. (2013). Intimate Enemies: Violence and Reconciliation in Peru (1st ed.). University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tolia-Kelly, D. P. (2006). Affect–An Ethnocentric Encounter? Exploring the ‘Universalist’ Imperative of Emotional/Affectual Geographies. Area, 38(2), 213–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trezise, B. (2014). Performing Feeling in Cultures of Memory. Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Uribe Alarcón, M. V. (2004). Antropología de la inhumanidad: Un ensayo interpretativo del terror en Colombia (1st ed.). Grupo Editorial Norma.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uribe Mallarino, C. (2008). Estratificación social en Bogotá: De la política pública a la dinámica de la segregación social. Universitas Humanística, 65, 139–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uribe Mallarino, C., & Pardo Pérez, C. (2006). La ciudad vivida: Movilidad espacial y representaciones sobre la estratificación social en Bogotá. Universitas Humanística, 62, 169–203.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uribe Mallarino, C., Cardozo, S. V., & Pérez, C. P. (2006). Subsidiar y segregar: la política de estratificación y sus efectos sobre la movilidad social en Bogotá. Papel Político, 11(1), 26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Viveros Vigoya, M. (2015). Social Mobility, Whiteness, and Whitening in Colombia: Social Mobility, Whiteness and Whitening in Colombia. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 20(3), 496–512. https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.12176

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Viveros Vigoya, M., & Gil Hernández, F. (2010). Género y generación en las experiencias de ascenso social de personas negras en Bogotá. Maguaré, 24, 99–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, M. (2009). Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie (5.). Mohr-Siebeck.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wikan, U. (2012). Resonance: Beyond the Words. The University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wills Obregón, M. E. (2022). Memorias para la paz o memorias para la guerra: Las disyuntivas frente al pasado que seremos (1st ed.). Editorial Planeta Colombiana: Crítica.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolf, M. (1992). A Thrice-Told Tale: Feminism, Postmodernism, and Ethnographic Responsibility. Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright, E. O. (2015). Understanding Class. Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yeh, R. (2012). A Middle-Class Public at Mexico’s Northern Border. In R. Heiman, C. Freeman, & M. Liechty (Eds.), The Global Middle Classes: Theorizing Through Ethnography (pp. 189–212). SAR Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zeiderman, A. (2016). Endangered City: The Politics of Security and Risk in Bogotá. Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Eichstätt, Germany

    Hendrikje Grunow

Authors
  1. Hendrikje Grunow
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Grunow, H. (2024). Introduction: Affected by Conflict. In: Intersections of Affect, Memory, and Privilege in Bogota, Colombia. Memory Politics and Transitional Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50935-3_1

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation