"We live in the territorio, and it lives in us" : Pacification, re-existence, and territorial configuration in the Colombian Andinoamazonia
(2026)- Abstract
- My thesis is an inquiry into the daily experiences of civil society actors in relation to how armed conflict, extractivism, and resistance shaped the Colombian Andinoamazonia during the country’s current peacebuilding cycle. Despite two dozen peace agreements, and the signing of a comprehensive agreement in 2016, Colombia’s protracted armed conflict did not end. The Colombian Andinoamazonia, a bioculturally diverse region historically affected by the armed conflict, was not exempt and became one of the deadliest places in the world to defend land and cultural rights. My research is an ethnographic account about representations and enactments of people-place relations as they configure the Colombian Andinoamazonia in everyday life. In... (More)
- My thesis is an inquiry into the daily experiences of civil society actors in relation to how armed conflict, extractivism, and resistance shaped the Colombian Andinoamazonia during the country’s current peacebuilding cycle. Despite two dozen peace agreements, and the signing of a comprehensive agreement in 2016, Colombia’s protracted armed conflict did not end. The Colombian Andinoamazonia, a bioculturally diverse region historically affected by the armed conflict, was not exempt and became one of the deadliest places in the world to defend land and cultural rights. My research is an ethnographic account about representations and enactments of people-place relations as they configure the Colombian Andinoamazonia in everyday life. In short, I seek to understand how these processes of territorial configuration are experienced in this bioculturally rich and conflict-affected place.
The theoretical framework conceptualizes territorial configuration and shows how I operationalize it to the case of the Andinoamazonia. It is inspired by scholarship advancing discussions about territorio/territory, territorialization and resource control, and Andinoamazonic territorialities mainly within human geography and political ecology. I also draw from a wider range of scholarship on territorio/territory from Latin American human geography and political ecology. The empirical material is the result of several rounds of fieldwork in 2022-2024, where I used ethnographic methods like participant observation, go-alongs, and document collection. Narrative analysis, through a process of ethnographic abduction or retroductive reasoning, constituted the main strategy to analyse the empirical material.
I find that the Colombian Andinoamazonia has been historically configured by the heterogenous dynamics of armed conflict, extractivism, and resistance. During the current peacebuilding cycle, the reconfiguration of armed conflict and the opening of a new extractivist frontier in the Colombian Andinoamazonia have driven experiences of pacification. I define pacification as a deliberate strategy deployed by armed actors and a multinational corporation to conceal ancestral and rooted ways of living in the Andinoamazonia to impose territorial orders that enable armed conflict and extractivism. I also find that a confluence of peoples and communities in defense of the Andinoamazonia shape this place in daily life through practices of re-existence as they oppose imposed territorialities while enacting alternatives. Therefore, the main contribution of my research is an in-depth analysis about place-based approaches to sustainability science where I unpack how places are configured and how the imposition of territorialities of extraction or war result from the expansion/invasion of practices that conceal and threaten place-based ways of life.
(Less) - Abstract (Swedish)
- Min avhandling är en undersökning av civilsamhälleliga aktörers vardagliga erfarenheter av hur väpnad konflikt, utvinningsindustri och motstånd har format det colombianska Andinoamazonia under landets pågående fredsbyggande process. Trots ett tjugotal fredsavtal och undertecknandet av ett övergripande avtal 2016 har Colombias långvariga väpnade konflikt inte upphört. Det colombianska Andinoamazonia, en region med stor biologisk och kulturell mångfald som historiskt sett har drabbats av den väpnade konflikten, undgick inte heller detta öde och blev en av de farligaste platserna i världen när det gäller att försvara mark- och kulturella rättigheter. Min forskning är en etnografisk redogörelse för hur relationerna mellan människor och platser... (More)
- Min avhandling är en undersökning av civilsamhälleliga aktörers vardagliga erfarenheter av hur väpnad konflikt, utvinningsindustri och motstånd har format det colombianska Andinoamazonia under landets pågående fredsbyggande process. Trots ett tjugotal fredsavtal och undertecknandet av ett övergripande avtal 2016 har Colombias långvariga väpnade konflikt inte upphört. Det colombianska Andinoamazonia, en region med stor biologisk och kulturell mångfald som historiskt sett har drabbats av den väpnade konflikten, undgick inte heller detta öde och blev en av de farligaste platserna i världen när det gäller att försvara mark- och kulturella rättigheter. Min forskning är en etnografisk redogörelse för hur relationerna mellan människor och platser framställs och gestaltas, och hur dessa relationer formar det colombianska Andinoamazonia i vardagen. Kort sagt strävar jag efter att förstå hur dessa processer av territoriell utformning upplevs på denna biokulturellt rika och konfliktdrabbade plats.
Den teoretiska ramen beskriver begreppet territoriell konfiguration och visar hur jag tillämpar det på fallet Andinoamazonia. Den bygger på forskning som fördjupar diskussionerna om territorio/territorium, territorialisering och kontroll över resurser samt territoriella strukturer i Andinoamazonia, främst inom kulturgeografi och politisk ekologi. Jag utgår även från en bredare akademisk litteratur om ”territorio/territory” inom latinamerikansk kulturgeografi och politisk ekologi. Det empiriska materialet är resultatet av flera omgångar fältarbete under åren 2022–2024, där jag använde etnografiska metoder som deltagande observation, medföljning och insamling av dokument. Narrativanalys, genom en process av etnografisk abduktion eller retroduktivt resonemang, utgjorde den huvudsakliga strategin för att analysera det empiriska materialet.
Jag finner att det colombianska Andinoamazonia historiskt sett har formats av den heterogena dynamiken mellan väpnad konflikt, utvinningsindustri och motstånd. Under den pågående fredsbyggnadsfasen har den förändrade karaktären hos den väpnade konflikten och öppnandet av ett nytt utvinningsområde i den colombianska Andinoamazonia-regionen varit drivande faktorer bakom erfarenheter av pacificering. Jag definierar pacificering som en medveten strategi som tillämpas av väpnade aktörer och ett multinationellt företag för att dölja de traditionella och djupt rotade levnadssätten i Andinoamazonia, i syfte att införa territoriella ordningar som möjliggör väpnad konflikt och utvinningsindustri. Jag ser också att samverkan mellan olika folk och samhällen i försvaret av Andinoamazonia präglar vardagslivet här genom att de, genom att motverka påtvingade territoriella gränser och samtidigt skapa alternativ, praktiserar en form av re-existens. Därför utgör det viktigaste bidraget i min forskning en fördjupad analys av platsbaserade tillvägagångssätt inom hållbarhetsvetenskapen, där jag belyser hur platser konfigureras och hur påtvingande av territoriella strukturer präglade av utvinning eller krig är en följd av en expansion/invasion av praktiker som döljer och hotar platsbaserade sätt att leva. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/21830f88-883f-4b6f-bac4-3b443e306cec
- author
- Samper, Juan Antonio LU
- supervisor
-
- Torsten Krause LU
- Mine Islar LU
- opponent
-
- Professor Aguilar Støen, Mariel Cristina, University of Oslo
- organization
- alternative title
- "Vi lever i territoriet, och det lever i oss" : Pacificering, re-existens, och territoriell konfiguration i den colombianska Andinoamazonia
- publishing date
- 2026-05
- type
- Thesis
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Territorial configuration, Re-existence, Social mobilisation, Amazon, Colombia, Territoriell konfiguration, Re-existens, Social mobilisering, Amazonas, Colombia
- edition
- 1st
- pages
- 118 pages
- publisher
- LUCSUS, Lund University
- defense location
- Eden hörsal, Allhelgona kyrkogata 14, Lund
- defense date
- 2026-06-05 13:00:00
- ISBN
- 978-91-8104-986-2
- 978-91-8104-987-9
- project
- Lund University Agenda 2030 Graduate School
- Crisis Inequalities and Social Resilience (CISR)
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 21830f88-883f-4b6f-bac4-3b443e306cec
- date added to LUP
- 2026-05-06 15:48:42
- date last changed
- 2026-05-08 14:34:03
@phdthesis{21830f88-883f-4b6f-bac4-3b443e306cec,
abstract = {{My thesis is an inquiry into the daily experiences of civil society actors in relation to how armed conflict, extractivism, and resistance shaped the Colombian Andinoamazonia during the country’s current peacebuilding cycle. Despite two dozen peace agreements, and the signing of a comprehensive agreement in 2016, Colombia’s protracted armed conflict did not end. The Colombian Andinoamazonia, a bioculturally diverse region historically affected by the armed conflict, was not exempt and became one of the deadliest places in the world to defend land and cultural rights. My research is an ethnographic account about representations and enactments of people-place relations as they configure the Colombian Andinoamazonia in everyday life. In short, I seek to understand how these processes of territorial configuration are experienced in this bioculturally rich and conflict-affected place. <br/>The theoretical framework conceptualizes territorial configuration and shows how I operationalize it to the case of the Andinoamazonia. It is inspired by scholarship advancing discussions about territorio/territory, territorialization and resource control, and Andinoamazonic territorialities mainly within human geography and political ecology. I also draw from a wider range of scholarship on territorio/territory from Latin American human geography and political ecology. The empirical material is the result of several rounds of fieldwork in 2022-2024, where I used ethnographic methods like participant observation, go-alongs, and document collection. Narrative analysis, through a process of ethnographic abduction or retroductive reasoning, constituted the main strategy to analyse the empirical material.<br/>I find that the Colombian Andinoamazonia has been historically configured by the heterogenous dynamics of armed conflict, extractivism, and resistance. During the current peacebuilding cycle, the reconfiguration of armed conflict and the opening of a new extractivist frontier in the Colombian Andinoamazonia have driven experiences of pacification. I define pacification as a deliberate strategy deployed by armed actors and a multinational corporation to conceal ancestral and rooted ways of living in the Andinoamazonia to impose territorial orders that enable armed conflict and extractivism. I also find that a confluence of peoples and communities in defense of the Andinoamazonia shape this place in daily life through practices of re-existence as they oppose imposed territorialities while enacting alternatives. Therefore, the main contribution of my research is an in-depth analysis about place-based approaches to sustainability science where I unpack how places are configured and how the imposition of territorialities of extraction or war result from the expansion/invasion of practices that conceal and threaten place-based ways of life.<br/>}},
author = {{Samper, Juan Antonio}},
isbn = {{978-91-8104-986-2}},
keywords = {{Territorial configuration; Re-existence; Social mobilisation; Amazon; Colombia; Territoriell konfiguration; Re-existens; Social mobilisering; Amazonas; Colombia}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{LUCSUS, Lund University}},
school = {{Lund University}},
title = {{"We live in the territorio, and it lives in us" : Pacification, re-existence, and territorial configuration in the Colombian Andinoamazonia}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/249381076/Juan_Antonio_Samper_-_WEBB.pdf}},
year = {{2026}},
}