Playing with the supposed distinctions between progress and destruction, this ethnography signals the prevalance of different kinds of violence in and on place in Colombia. The essay follows a project of demining in an apparent shift away from violence, destruction and ruination and towards peace and liberation. It indicates the continued presence of violence, transformed but nonetheless shaping the landscape. The sentiment conveyed is a feeling of continued threat in an apparently peaceful time. The viewer sees the 'official' story - three maps of mines - and the actual practices of demining as a ruination of natural landscape. Toxicities here take different forms, but remain present across time and space: in relations between people, and then in relations between people and place. The advance in ethnographic insight is in the exploration of transformation of toxcity through political phases in a country. Toxicity lends itself well to this kind of transformation - nebulous, atmospheric and ambiguous, it can move across contexts whilst continuing to shape them.
Analytic (Question)
Everyone can view this content
On