Why?
Scholarship on Refugee Studies and Forced Migration Studies reveals the need for a theoretical reflection about what constitutes a refugee, a forced migrant, or a forced displaced person (Arboleda 2007; Black 2001; Chimni 1998, 2009; Jacobsen and Landau 2003; Marfleet 2007; Rodgers 2004; Turton 2003). Critics argue that there is a practice with a long pedigree of relatively uncritical use of policy-based definitions of refuges (Black 2001: 63). Others argue that forced displacement and forced migration are euphemisms for more historically complex processes such as destierro, which translates as uprooting, deracination, exile, exodus, and banishment 1 (Arboleda 2007).
The centrality of historical analysis consists of an attempt to comprehend the phenomena of forced migration, especially as its history ‘has always been notable by its absence’ (Marfleet 2007: 136). Due to the lack of historicity underneath the concept of forced migration, I argue that this field of social research, intellectual and political intervention needs to be revised, and radically reconsidered on a case-by-case basis.
Critical ethno-historical research should contribute to the emergence of alternative categories, theoretical frameworks, and methodological principles to move beyond the notion of forced migration, which is looking increasingly inadequate (Turton 2003: 14). I would go further to suggest that it is a notion that has proven dubious, narrow-minded, constrictive, and dangerous.
Consequently, in this book I take an extended case study approach to the concept of forced migration, in light of the 2002 massacre at Bellavista-Chocó-Colombia. 2 I study this massacre to untangle the conceptual and socio-geo-historical dimensions silenced in the prevailing intellectual frameworks of what social scientists and politicians today refer to as forced migration. I explore the importance of ethno-historical case studies to offer a more nuanced analysis of the realities of deracinated populations condemned to be ignored, either because they are considered ‘hard to quantify’ (Castles 2003: 15) or because the complex causes are not easily captured in the prevailing labels (Black 1998), and are therefore left out of the mainstream debate.
Hence, this inquiry dwells on the limitation of current epistemic and political-legal frameworks to comprehensively answer and radically transform the realities of those forced to deracinate from their land. Their deracination was mainly induced by elements related to class, race, gender, political and economic violence, or the result of environmental disasters. Current frameworks are neither fair in theorizing the histories of the people being abused, raped, taken away from their property, and killed systematically; nor have they designed effective policy prescriptions to repair the damage such experiences have produced. Furthermore, current epistemic and legal frameworks do little to contribute to the respect and dignity of the people affected. Therefore we need new and enhanced categories and theories to comprehend multiple dislocations that will embrace the long dureé, in Braudel’s style.
This inquiry depicts, first, the global dimensions of this phenomenon vis-à-vis a critical interpretation of the conceptual dimensions of the categories used to comprehend it. I examine the need to identify the silenced conceptual, geographical, and historical layers of meaning to assess the pertinence of prevailing intellectual frameworks. Second, I highlight the need to move beyond both the sociology of forced migration and the core theoretical framework of migration studies as a whole by considering the sociological importance of contextual categories such as deracination and diaspora.
The use of journalism, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and political science to study this event contributed to reaffirm that the massacre is an effect of the growing armed conflict in the country. The history of the region is constantly overlooked. Little is said about the historical continuities and discontinuities of colonial capitalism, racialized colonialization, class, racial, sexual, gender, and generational exploitation this case reveals 3 (Almario 2004; Arboleda 2004, 2007; Escobar 2004; Oslender 2004). It is as if the history of colonialization and racialization of the Atrato River 4 region and of the state of Chocó itself—and its significance for the world political economy—is invisible to most social scientists devoted to the case of Bellavista, and the analogous cases in different regions of world. Research on Bellavista for over a decade has isolated the event from the history of the region in which it occurred. The same pattern could be found in cases with similar characteristics all over Latin America, South Asia, and Africa (Marfleet 2007:136).
Therefore, this case enlightens current debates on the need for a theoretical reflection about what constitutes a refugee, a forced migrant, or a forced displaced person. In addition, it serves as a gateway to continue crafting a theory of Afrodescendent and Indigenous Diasporas in Colombia (Almario 2004; Arboleda 2007; Lao-Montes 2008).
How?
The concept of forced migration and related subject, needs to be un-thought, both epistemically and politically, from a Black feminist perspective. 5 Haitian Anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot states the importance of the production of history as a fruit of power and the necessity of exposing its roots to challenge its invisibility. He writes, “history is the fruit of power, but power is never itself so transparent that its analysis becomes superfluous. The ultimate mark of power may be its invisibility, the ultimate challenge, the exposition of its roots.” (Trouillot 1995, xix). His claim raises this major question for activists, scholars, and policy makers working with populations historically victims of land dispossession, or any other kind of social force inducing people’s violent dislocation. Building on this statement, I aim to outline the theoretical infirmity in the concepts underlying the research and policies produced in the field of forced migration. My initial suspicion is that the main rationales in which this concept is founded can contribute to the continued exploitation and pillage of the populations it meant to protect. 6 Exposing the historical roots of this phenomenon serves as an opening to unveil the constellation of knowledge and power dynamics shaping the emergence and constitution of this field of research. In the case of Bellavista, revealing the roots of the history of land dispossession in the Bajo Atrato River region offers historical patterns of colonial capitalism and racial exploitation, as well as social mobilization for decolonialization, to help comprehend current violent events such as massacres, massive evictions, and claims of land ownership by foreigners with false documentation.
Numerous scholars argue that these events have led and continue lead to ‘forced displacements’ and ‘forced migration’ of survivors. However, historicizing these events will help us understand their significance in a more complex socio-economic, political, legal, historical, and cultural context. Describing violent events, such as massacres in isolation—as new incidents—obscures or limits the possibility of critical historical sociological theorizing. It also obscures the possibility of producing alternative discourses for social mobilization and social transformation. From this perspective, new debates, and a new range of strategies to transform realities of death into dignified existence could be opened. In this book, I argue that it is necessary to situate events of violence in the history of the territory in which they take place.
I am interested in developing an analytical schema to substantiate the sociological significance of exposing dubious and narrow-minded approaches in the dominant perspective of the field of forced migration. This exposure must be accompanied by a proposal to generate critical categories of socio-historical analysis. This case asks for a critical thought about the disconnection between the advance in the literature and the empirical proliferation of the phenomenon. The deconstructive strategy comes in as ‘an unclosed, not wholly formalizable ensemble of rules for reading, interpretation, and writing’ (Derrida 1983, 40). This should offer tools to analyze the specific texts we will be encountering both to expose and subvert the binary oppositions undergirding the dominant ways of thinking in this field.
I am using A. Quijano’s concept of coloniality of power as a tool of world-historical analysis A. Quijano establishes a direct link between the imposition of racial classifications and the emergence of the coloniality of power, as a permanent extension of the relations of subalternity created during colonialism. He also traces how these patterns of power configure Latin American and Caribbean institutions, forms of authority, modalities of exploitation, and the challenges that have been born in the center of long-term exploited populations. He argues that coloniality is based on the imposition of a racial/ethnic classification of the global population as the cornerstone of that model of power. It operates on every level, in every arena and dimension (both material and subjective of everyday social existence, and does so on a societal scale) (Lao 2008: 20).
As stated earlier, the goal herein is to contribute to dispelling, from the core sociological thinking and policy making, an historical conceptualization of the phenomenon many call forced migration. This is both an intellectual and a political imperative to question how a dispossessed person can be considered a migrant, and to what extend “labeling” the survivors of economic and political violence, development projects, and natural disasters as forced migrants produces a constrictive and hazardous intellectual and legal-political framework that substantiates their subordination.
The first...