​Lateinamerika Netzwerk

In the second session of the lecture series, Markus Rauchecker presented on ontological conflicts in the Colombian Caribbean, focusing on a case study involving a water source in El Morro. His core argument is that diverging ontologies—fundamentally different understandings of what “nature” is – significantly drive environmental conflicts.

Three main actors were analysed: the local (indigenous) community, construction companies, and state institutions. While state and corporate stakeholders classify nature as a resource to be managed, exploited, or compensated for, the local communities regard it as the essential foundation of life. A water source not officially mapped was excluded from planning processes, demonstrating how certain worldviews are systematically disregarded.

Rauchecker advocated for expanding environmental conflict research to include ontological questions – how orders and classifications are formed in power-laden processes. He highlighted the contrast between Western dichotomies (nature vs. culture) and indigenous perspectives, stressing the political implications of excluding non-dominant ontologies.

The discussion addressed methodological challenges of capturing non-Western knowledge systems, the colonial nature of cartography, and the broader issue of how nature is socially constructed and contested:

In the third session of the lecture series, Pilar Mendoza presented her research under the title “Colombian Exile as a Symbolic, Political, and Transitional Space.” Drawing from work at the Colombian National Centre for Historical Memory, Mendoza examined exile as a complex experience shaped by Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict, collective trauma, and systemic racism – especially against Indigenous and Afro-Colombian populations.

She highlighted how the categories of exile, migration, and asylum blur together, often deliberately manipulated by state policies to obscure international legal responsibilities toward displaced persons. Although Colombia signed a peace agreement in 2016 intended to end its internal armed conflict, the continued movement out of the country reflects the failed implementation of the accord – including unfulfilled guarantees of safety, justice, and social reintegration – as well as the persistence of violence and structural inequality. For Mendoza, exile is not merely a physical departure but a political and affective space: one shaped by resistance, memory, and the ongoing reconstruction of identity.

The presentation emphasized the crucial role of civil society, especially exiled communities, in peacebuilding and historical memory. Mendoza traced how community-based memory practices – often emerging on the margins – become central to broader national conversations on truth, justice, and reconciliation. She highlighted Colombia’s restorative justice model, which emphasizes symbolic reparation and includes strong participation by Indigenous and Afro-Colombian commissioners and magistrates.

Exile is framed as a threshold experience – marked by rupture, dislocation, and transformation – where individuals experience temporal dislocation and identity transformation. Concepts like “insilio” (internal exile), desarraigo (uprootedness), and circular time perceptions underscore the emotional and ontological complexity of exile. Mendoza called for a decolonial approach to peace and memory, recognizing the agency of marginalized communities and their diverse worldviews, practices, and epistemologies.

In the fourth session of the lecture series, Catherine Whittaker and Elizabeth Schierhold presented their ongoing research project titled “Pluriversale Sinnesgrenzen. Dekoloniale Bewegungen, migrantische Körper und Sinneserfahrungen an der US mexikanischen Grenze.” The project explores how migrant and racialized individuals perceive borders through sensory experience, using the concept of sentipensar (thinking-feeling) as a decolonial epistemological tool.

The researchers apply a multisensory ethnographic approach in San Diego/San Ysidro, collaborating with local cultural institutions and activist networks. They analyse how sounds – along with other senses like touch and smell – shape the embodied experience of borders and contribute to processes of homemaking and belonging. The use of a Soundbox (a mobile affective artifact) allows participants to archive and share urban, natural, and domestic soundscapes, offering insight into memory, identity, and affective geographies.

Key theoretical frameworks include sound studies, the anthropology of the senses, affect theory, and decolonial pluriversality. Sound is not merely noise – it influences perception, emotion, and spatial attachment. Migrant homemaking is explored through acoustic practices, revealing how sonic experiences can both anchor and unsettle one’s sense of place.

On May 28, María Cárdenas presented her past, ongoing, and future research exploring what we can learn from ancestral activists and their onto-epistemologies to rethink peace and security. A key part of her research engaged with ancestral activists' rooted (and conventional) diplomacy networks and their potential to envision and build a pluriversal form of protection as an alternative to the increasing normalization of armed violence. Building on her long-term engagement with Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, Raizal, Rrom, and Palenquero activists in Colombia, Cárdenas shared her doctoral research on the peace activism of ancestral activists in Colombia and how they used different diplomacy methods to secure the inclusion of an ethnic chapter in the agreement. Looking ahead to her current and future work, she discussed the need to rethink predominant approaches to peace and security. Eurocentric security models, such as the survivalist ethos of hegemonic international politics (Graham and Brigg, 2023), are limited in addressing the challenges of modernity/coloniality (Escobar, 2018). Learning from ancestral communities in Colombia, alternative practices are available for reimagining peace and security within a pluriverse. However, local responses (i.e. Guardias) are increasingly threatened in their possibilities to confront extractivist and ontological violence and erasure on the ground. Therefore, ancestral activists aim to transcend the boundaries imposed by coloniality—such as territorial, national, and regional borders—and make an impact on the global stage through rooted and traditional diplomacy networks. Accompanying these activists and their networks in her ongoing and future research, Cárdenas' research contributes to ongoing debates on the global relevance of ancestral actors in peace and security governance, while exposing the limits of hegemonic international security paradigms. 

For further information, see: 

Cárdenas, M. (forthcoming): On Pluriversality and Governance: Decolonizing Lessons from Colombia. International Affairs. 

Cárdenas, M. (2025). Learning From the “Guardias” Integral Security as a Response to Multiple Phenomena of Violence in Colombia (C. Schweitzer, Ed.; pp. 35–40). Bund für Soziale Verteidigung e.V. https://soziale-verteidigung.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/HuD-87-Social-Defence.pdf

Cárdenas, M. (2023): Why peacebuilding is condemned to fail if it ignores ethnicization. The case of Colombia. Peacebuilding. DOI: 10.1080/21647259.2022.2128583

Laura Barrios and Jonas Wolff presented findings from their research on post-conflict reintegration of ex-FARC-EP combatants in Colombia, examining how collective reincorporation affects social cohesion and perceptions of peace. Drawing on intergroup contact theory, survey data revealed that close interaction with former combatants led to reduced social distance and increased support for political reintegration and peace processes.

They also introduced their ongoing project on pluriversal peacebuilding, emphasizing the diverse, often conflicting interpretations of peace, justice, and development across local actors. Using feminist and decolonial participatory methods – especially social cartography and body mapping – the researchers aim to co-produce knowledge with communities while addressing gendered and epistemological complexities.

Key themes included: 1). The gap between the peace agreement's collective ideals and lived experiences. 2). Tensions around gender, heteronormativity, and community identities. 3). Methodological challenges in balancing flexibility, representation, and ethical engagement. 4). The need to recognize diverse ontologies and avoid imposing homogeneous interpretations of peace