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.

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In this introduction, the editors present the seven articles that constitute this special issue on Colombia. They explain the context of the war that has wracked the country for more than 50 years and highlight the central themes that connect the articles. This essay also analyzes how the 2016 accord between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) aims to address the causes of the conflict so as to establish a durable peace with justice. The essay then looks at the challenges ahead for the implementation of the agreement. Issues of rural inequality, displacement, impunity, the illegal drug economy, the military, private armed groups, new social demands, innovative memory projects, and the changing role of the state are discussed. The bibliography provides a guide to some of the best Colombian literature on the armed conflict, its impact, and possible outcomes of the peace process. RESUMEN En esta introducción, los editores presentan los siete artículos que hacen parte de este número especial sobre Colombia. Los editores explican el contexto de la guerra que ha devastado este país durante más de 50 años y subrayan temas comunes que conectan los artículos. El ensayo también analiza cómo el acuerdo de paz logrado en 2016 busca reconocer las causas del conflicto con el fin de establecer una paz duradera con justicia. El ensayo también examina los desafíos que supone la implementación del acuerdo. Conflictos de desigualdad rural, desplazamiento, impunidad, la economía de las drogas, el aspecto militar, los grupos armados privados, nuevas demandas sociales, innovadores proyectos de memoria y el cambiante rol del estado son todos temas discutidos en este texto. La bibliografía proporciona una guía a la mejor literatura colombiana sobre el conflicto armado, sus impactos y los posibles resultados del acuerdo de paz.

This article examines the connections between people, memories and violence through an ethnographic account of the ways places are rendered meaningful in Medellin, Colombia. In this city, daily life has been profoundly affected by a multilayered violent conflict where multiple armed actors, scenarios and forms of violence interplay. The article describes practices of place‐making such as landmarking, place‐naming, soundscaping, and imagining that invest places with significance and maintain a local implicit knowledge that allows circulation and survival in the city. Through these practices of place‐making, memory has become a bridging practice that restores a sense of place to the experience of displacement that violence inflicts in peoples lives. These processes, however, are at risk of becoming emptied of meaning by the power of widespread violences to suppress and fragment and by the ways terror and fear are remaking, the social landscape.

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