The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Space

by Ulrich Oslender

Overview

In The Geographies of Social Movements Ulrich Oslender proposes a critical place perspective to examine the activism of black communities in the lowland rain forest of Colombia's Pacific Coast region. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in and around the town of Guapi, Oslender examines how the work of local community councils, which have organized around newly granted ethnic and land rights since the early 1990s, is anchored to space and place. Exploring how residents' social relationships are entangled with the region's rivers, streams, swamps, rain, and tides, Oslender argues that this "aquatic space"—his conceptualization of the mutually constitutive relationships between people and their rain forest environment—provides a local epistemology that has shaped the political process. Oslender demonstrates that social mobilization among Colombia's Pacific Coast black communities is best understood as emerging out of their place-based identity and environmental imaginaries. He argues that the critical place perspective proposed accounts more fully for the multiple, multiscalar, rooted, and networked experiences within social movements.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822361220
Publisher:	Duke University Press Books
Publication date:	03/24/2016
Series:	New Ecologies for the Twenty-First Century
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ulrich Oslender is Associate Professor of Geography at Florida International University and the coeditor of Bridging Scholarship and Activism: Reflections from the Frontlines of Collaborative Research.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations  vii

Acknowledgments  xi

Prologue. Black Communities in Colombia and the Constitution of 1991  1

Introduction. The Geographies of Social Movements  7

1. Toward a Critical Place Perspective on Social Movements  25

Interlude. Meeting Don Agapito: Reflections on Fieldwork  36

2. Mapping Meandering Poetics and an Aquatic Sense of Place: Oral Tradition as Hidden Transcript of Resistance  46

3. Historical Geographies of Resistance and Convivencia in the Pacific Lowlands  92

4. Mobilizing the Aquatic Space: The Forming of Community Councils  135

5. Ideals, Practices, and Leadership of the Community Councils  159

Epilogue  205

Notes  221

Glossary  251

References  255

Index  277

What People are Saying About This

Hegemony: The New Shape of Global Power - John Agnew

"Ulrich Oslender makes a clear and forceful argument for using a critical place perspective. The Geographies of Social Movements is an outstanding piece of work; with its open and inviting writing and its broad overview of the literature about social movements, it will be a welcome text for introducing anthropology, sociology, and geography students to the dilemmas of 'development' and the difficulties of people who live in marginalized spaces. Oslender's grasp of the history of Colombia and its internal political divisions is beyond reproach."
 

Race and Ethnicity in Latin America - Peter Wade

"Ulrich Oslender makes a powerful argument about the importance of place-based identities and processes for understanding social movements, as well as about the need for grassroots ethnography to complement the more typical focus on literature and leaders. His close examination of the way that community councils were formed in Colombia's Pacific Coast region is an important and little-studied aspect of the Colombian black social movement and provides a vital way to understand political mobilization and social movements in general."

Editorial Reviews

"Oslender’s book is an important contribution to our understanding of social movements, and particularly of Afro-Colombian social mobilization. He shows that traditional accounts of social movements pay attention to their scripts, their documents, and their struggles."

Left History - Farid Samir Benavides Vanegas

"We can learn from how Oslender adds a critical place perspective to theories of social movements. He indeed demonstrates that concepts of space and place are central to thinking about how people mobilize as political collectives."

Environment and Society - Allison Koch

"Oslender masterfully ties different threads together to form a compelling argument about the importance of place and space in charting social movement. . . . I cannot help but think of the immense value of this approach for understanding the present U.S. political situation. . . . In a cultural moment that seems increasingly punctuated with high-visibility social movements—I am thinking of Standing Rock and of the Women’s March, for example—Oslender offers a new, more nuanced way to situate our understandings of resistance and movement."

AmeriQuests - Kourtney Kinsel

"Oslender’s beautifully crafted book is also the product of many years of research—and it likewise benefits from a depth of expertise. . . . Oslender is trained as a geographer, but the book is deeply ethnographic and will be of interest to anthropologists of water, space, place, and social movements. In beautiful prose, he recounts the way the tides configure everyday life among this fishing community, where both travel and livelihoods pulse with their rhythms, while arguing that peasant activism emerges from these specific contexts."

PoLAR - Colin Hoag

"Ulrich Oslender has produced a significant contribution to the literature on place, space, and social movements. This manuscript convincingly argues for a critical and multi-scalar examination of human and non-human entanglements through his concept of aquatic space."

Anthropological Forum - Maurice Rafael Magaña

"Readers from geography, sociology, resource management, sustainability, Latin American studies, peasant studies, political science, and related fields will find value in this work."

AAG Review of Books - Joseph L. Scarpaci

"With this carefully researched, well-written examination of issues facing Colombia's Pacific lowlands in the twenty-first century, Ulrich Oslender offers two important contributions: first, the elaboration of an innovative, theoretical template inspired by the region's unique geography as a lens to analyze developments that have and are occuring there; and second, a history of the region that reviews its development from colonial times to present."

Journal of Global South Studies - Jane M. Rausch

"Ulrich Oslender has produced a significant contribution to the literature on place, space, and social movements. This manuscript convincingly argues for a critical and multi-scalar examination of human and non-human entanglements through his concept of aquatic space."

Anthropological Forum - Maurice Rafael Magaña

"Ulrich Oslender makes a powerful argument about the importance of place-based identities and processes for understanding social movements, as well as about the need for grassroots ethnography to complement the more typical focus on literature and leaders. His close examination of the way that community councils were formed in Colombia's Pacific Coast region is an important and little-studied aspect of the Colombian black social movement and provides a vital way to understand political mobilization and social movements in general."

Race and Ethnicity in Latin America - Peter Wade

"Ulrich Oslender makes a clear and forceful argument for using a critical place perspective. The Geographies of Social Movements is an outstanding piece of work; with its open and inviting writing and its broad overview of the literature about social movements, it will be a welcome text for introducing anthropology, sociology, and geography students to the dilemmas of 'development' and the difficulties of people who live in marginalized spaces. Oslender's grasp of the history of Colombia and its internal political divisions is beyond reproach."
 

Hegemony: The New Shape of Global Power - John Agnew