Global flows and everyday violence in urban space: The port-city of Buenaventura, Colombia

China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Views from the ground

“… Rolf, 2019 ). Yet our special issue contributes to and advances recent arguments in Political Geography that the exercise of sovereignty is always spatially selective and graduated ( Holden, 2017 ), and power is not so much exercised upon capital and commodity flows, as it emerges through the relations established by global flows themselves ( Emel, Huber, & Makene, 2011 ; Jenss, 2020 ). While accurate, it is not so productive to simply assert “the BRI is geopolitical”, nor is it sufficient to suggest that China is exporting a particular model of development through the Initiative (see Harlan, 2017 ; Yeh & Wharton, 2016 ).…”

Beyond displacement: territorialization in the port city of Buenaventura, Colombia

“…2 Finally, we draw on additional key secondary accounts, particularly CNMH (2015) and Garzón (2020), as well as media reports. This was necessary to complement our findings given the constraints on primary research in this violent context (Jenss, 2020), while also acknowledging and highlighting existing work undertaken in the area by local researchers, often in close collaboration with local communities.…”

“…These involve three groups with contradictory territorial visions, operating in the municipality's rural and urban areas: first, groups with a 'developmentalist' vision, including private actors, but also potentially agents of the state; second, armed actors, including guerrillas, paramilitaries and criminal groups; and third, communities and their representative organizations (Cobo et al, 2020, p. 7). While territorial conflict in urban Buenaventura is often attributed to control of trafficking routes (CNMH, 2015), recent critical analysis suggests that violence and insecurity in Buenaventura go hand in hand with the imposition of the neoliberal development model (Alves & Ravindran, 2020;Jenss, 2020;Oslender, 2004a;Zeiderman, 2016). This is given weight by the fact that terror and displacement seem to occur most frequently in areas where port expansion is planned or projected.…”

“…The production of territory in urban Buenaventura The area known as Bajamar is seen as paradigmatic of Afro-Colombians' long struggle for territory, life and identity in Buenaventura. While the reality of displacement and violence in this area is inescapable (Jenss, 2020;Zeiderman, 2016), this occurs alongside, and frequently obscures, wider territorialization processes. The territorial condition of Afro-Colombian communities has been defined by the PCN in terms of symbolic and time-space dynamics (PCN, 1994, cited in Oslender, 2012.…”

“…Yet this landscape is also fundamental to the territorial imaginary of the city's mainly Afro-Colombian residents, mobilized in their territorial struggles. Inhabitants of the city's low-income neighbourhoods, especially at the water's edge, are subject to regular threats of eviction and displacement from armed actors and the state, sometimes overlapping in the context of port expansion (Jenss, 2020). For many this constitutes a double displacement (López, 2019), as they have come to the city after expulsion from their rural lands.…”