‘We are not poor things’: territorio cuerpo-tierra and Colombian women’s organised struggles

Abstract

In this article, I use Lorena Cabnal’s notion of territorio cuerpo-tierra to analyse seventeen in-depth interviews with women leaders of rural social movements and other organisations in Colombia . In the interviews, social leaders condemn violence that is epistemic, systemic, militarised and that permeates all ambits of life. They denounce how the coloniality of power operates, while at the same time they propose alternatives for a better life from their own cosmovisions by enacting food sovereignty and constructing feminisms from ‘below’. I demonstrate how these social leaders’ actions are entangled in decolonial feminist struggles, which undermine the way in which women in the Global South have been constructed as ‘objects’ or ‘in need of saving’. These women are not ‘victims who need saving’, but politically active subjects who enact change locally and nationally through their ‘territories bodies-lands’. Not only do their narratives highlight the intimate relationship of the body with the land, but I argue that we must follow their lead in order to dismantle the coloniality of power.

The politics of memory in post-accord Colombia: interventions from women social leaders and decolonial feminisms

“…Among the concerning context of state-led historical memory construction and ongoing violence and conflict, there is also a growing number of initiatives and processes for placebased collective memory in Colombia -arguably, forms of 'place-based heritage' (Little 2019, 631) that need to be amplified. This argument resonates with Latin Americana decolonial work that has argued for the importance of the epistemic forces of place of women in the Global South (see Harcourt and Escobar 2005;Lozano 2016;Rodriguez Castro 2020).…”

Extractivism and Territorial Dispossession in Rural Colombia: A Decolonial Commitment to Campesinas’ Politics of Place

“…They are doing this in relation to gendered extractive labour, climate change and territorial dispossession. These body-land resistances and negotiations are deeply related to the political agendas of the organised rural social movements led by women in Colombia (see Rodriguez Castro, 2020).…”

“…Here, I deliberately refer to the body-land interrelation with the territory-as a politically relevant, heterogenous and relational space to understand how dispossession and extractivism operate (see Lozano, 2016;Devine, Ojeda and Yie Garzón, 2020;Rodriguez Castro, 2020). Rather than seeking an absolute definition of the territory, its complexities are better understood through the processes and relationships of 'local realities' that are interrelated to 'national and global dynamics and structures of power' (Devine, Ojeda and Yie Garzón, 2020, p. 15).…”

Not victims, but fighters: A global overview on women's leadership in anti-mining struggles

“…In Guatemala, for instance, women from the mountains of Xalapán stood up against mining by linking daily struggles to defend land with the defense of their bodies as the first "territory" threatened by the capitalist-patriarchal development model. They developed the concept of Territorio Cuerpo-Tierra 2 (Cabnal, 2010) which has caught the attention of scholars in recent years (Caretta et al, 2020;Rodríguez Castro, 2020;.…”