Collective Memory in Colombia: A Strategy to Reconstruct Historical Recounts, Resist and Re-Exist in Black Territories.

From a multidisciplinary perspective, this proposal focuses on collective memory. The multilayer concept allows the study of cultural subsistence in complex contexts of violence, discrimination, and marginalization. A general definition of collective memory as “a social construction constituted through a multiplicity of circulating sign forms, with interpretations shared by some social actors and institutions, and contested by others in response to heterogeneous positions in a hierarchical social field” (French, 2012, p. 349), allows us to assert that collective memory is a suitable theoretical framework to explore the role of grassroots organizations and communities in post-conflict contexts where racial exclusion and discrimination are decisive.

Colombia is an illustrative case. Its internal conflict endures a complexity that intermingles multiple variables: the role of history and its contrast with collective memory narratives, the different levels of appropriation of those narratives, and their relevance in changing political frames. One of the significant recent results is the recognition of structural racism as one of the ground reasons for the differential impacts of the armed conflict by the Colombian Commission of Truth. It is the result of the confluence of social mobilization and prioritizing the victims' voices as a basis for the report with which the Commission ended its mandate.

Thus, this proposal addresses the questions of what is the role of collective memory and how it operates within grassroots organizations and Black communities regarding political positioning, cultural resistance, and re-existence and how these local narratives generate impact across institutionalized memory initiatives, using as a reference the Colombian Commission of Truth.

This inquiry aims to reflect on the power of narratives and discourses arising from powerless sociocultural spheres to confront and dispute narratives about the past. It also offers the opportunity to transcend the individuality of social studies to focus on collective action, belonging, and self-positioning.