Rosbelinda Cardenas

Making Afro-Desplazados in Colombia: From Victimized Citizenship to Historical Redress

At the intersection of Colombia’s protracted war and deep legal multicultural reforms, is the case of Afro-Colombian war victims’ demands for reparations. Drawing on her newly released book, Raising Two Fists, Cárdenas analyzes the timely, innovative, and also dangerous pursuit of ethnically-differentiated war reparations that emerged in the early 2000s in Colombia. This talk examines the political power of mobilizing black, displaced peoples as afro-desplazados while critically remarking on the often-unwitting tethering of blackness to victimization, which relies on the hyper-visibilization of contemporary suffering as the justification for basic rights. The author also provides an ethnographic account of the incipient but growing movement for historical reparations for slavery that has emerged in recent years in Colombia. Analyzing the two side mobilizations by side allows for a comparison of their spatial logics, temporality, and political deployment, which emerges as unexpectedly generative.

Dr. Roosbelinda Cárdenas González is assistant professor of Cultural Anthropology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. Dr. Cárdenas’ research brings the histories of postcolonial racial formations to bear on contemporary struggles over citizenship, national belonging, and social justice in Latin America. As a politically engaged scholar, her research is intended to produce knowledge that can be activated for social change. Dr. Cárdenas has published in academic outlets such as Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, Sexualidad, Salud y Sociedad: Revista Latinoamericana, Social Studies of Science, and The Journal of Peasant of Studies, as well as in popular outlets such as in popular outlets such as NACLA, MERIP and The Nation. Her 2024 book, Raising Two Fists: Struggles for Black Citizenship in Multicultural Colombia is the product of ethnographic research tracing Black antiracist organizing in Colombia for over two decades.

Light refreshments will be served. This event is open to Columbia University affiliates with a valid university ID. Any questions on the events can be directed Diana Guo, dg3372@columbia.edu; Vinita Govindarajan, vg2588@columbia.edu; Mauricio Enrique Rada Orellana, mer2245@columbia.edu

The Lecture in Planning Series (LiPS) is co-organized by the MSUP Program and second-year PhD students in Urban Planning: Vinita Govindarajan, Diana Guo, and Mauricio Rada Orellana.