Abstract

DIAMOND, ALEX. BUILDING PEACE AND OVERCOMING COCA CULTIVATION: THE PEACE LABORATORY IN BRICENO, A STRUGGLE FOR THE FUTURE OF COLOMBIA'S COUNTRYSIDE. Maguare [online]. 2022, vol.36, n.2, pp.235-260.  Epub Dec 23, 2022. ISSN 0120-3045.  https://doi.org/10.15446/mag.v36n2.102869.

In this visual essay, based on 24 months of ethnographic research in Briceno, I use images to describe how the local population has lived and influenced a wholesale territorial transformation. I focus on three themes: state investment, particularly the illicit crop substitution program from the peace process; campesino's struggles to develop new economic activities following the disappearance of coca; and the threat of megaprojects, particularly the Hidroituango dam and a proposed multinational gold mine, that are supported by state power. The example of Briceno shows how the peace process is part of a struggle for the future of the Colombian countryside as a site of smallholder production or capitalist extraction. This tension is resolved on the territorial level, in the convergence of economic policy, capitalist projects, and campesino economies.

Keywords : Briceno; visual ethnography; Hidroituango; megaprojects; peace process; rural livelihoods.

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