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Citation |
Riaño‐Alcalá P. Soc. Anthropol. 2008; 16(1): 1-18. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2008, European Association of Social Anthropologists, Publisher John Wiley and Sons) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
unavailable |
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Abstract |
In Colombia, a country with a long-standing multipolar armed conflict, the performance of violence in the form of massacres, selective assassinations, threats, disappearances, rape and forced displacement has turned fear into a powerful language by which the various armed actors communicate with society, reconfigure the landscape and regulate everyday life. Understanding forced migration as a form of displacement under coercion and fear, this article examines forms and notions of memorialized fear that are inscribed in the narratives of displacement and exile of a group of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia and Colombian refugees in Canada. The article explores the relationships between memory, fear, and forced migration as a means to advance an anthropological analysis of the ways people reconstruct their lives in the midst of displacement and change. I suggest that a continuum of fear marks the journeys of displacement and exile of Colombian forced migrants. Fear is expressed as embodied memory and narrative thread to remember the past, the journey of forced migration, the interactions with the forced migration regime and the arrival and experiences in another host society. In the context of change and the liminal situations of IDPs and refugees, I consider the weight of emotions such as fear in shaping experience and remembrance so as to offer a critical starting point in reconsidering approaches towards, and conceptualizations of, identity, re-establishment of rights and incorporation into new social landscapes. |