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E-book Commodifying Violence in Literature and on Screen : The Colombian Condition

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Penilaian

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For a long time, I have been thinking about how best to talk about vio-lence in Colombia without falling prey to broad statements such as “Colombia is a violent country” or “violence rules Colombia.” These statements have contributed to the pervasiveness of Colombia’s cultural representations of violence globally, be those carried out by Colombians themselves or by others outside Colombia. Wary as I am of such generalizations, which, frankly, could apply to many countries in the world (including the US, from where this book originates), when asked if Colombia is a violent country I would typically respond yes, but provide an important caveat: not more so than many other nations around the world facing social inequities and civil unrest. The preconceived notion that violence is intrinsically ingrained in Colombia’s national fabric has fueled a dominant stereotyping in the media which perpetuates the idea of a “hostage nation” irremediably caught in a web of endless drug trafficking, kidnappings, paramilitarism, guerrilla warfare, and human rights violations. This view is somewhat reductive and tends to espouse the idea that there is such a thing as “Colombian violence”—a rather homogenizing category in which very different iterations of violence are lumped together in a rather simplistic fashion. For one, it attaches vio-lence to a country’s identity and, in so doing, it relays that there is a specific, home-grown violence that implicitly defines and becomes the identifier of Colombia. This is problematic because it equates violence and Colombia and makes both terms almost interchangeable—as if one did not exist without the other. As we know, not everything emerging from Colombia is violent (and not everything is peaceful, of course) but this view of “Colombia, the violent nation” has important repercussions for cultural production and dissemination, because the assumption and misconception in the global cultural market have long been that, if some-thing comes from Colombia, it has to be violent or, at least, originate in violence.This became evident to me when I started traveling to Colombia around 2006 and soon realized, by the kinds of reactions I received, that for most people I was putting myself in danger by going there. At a modest height of five foot seven and a slim body of 135 pounds (not quite the imposing figure that would detract anyone from potentially harming me), I have been fortunate enough not to experience any violent acts during my time in Colombia or witness them in close proximity. While sharing my personal in-country experience may seem trivial, I include it here to establish my positionality as the foreign “I”/eye seeing and reading Colombia, as someone coming from outside Colombia—born and reared in the Basque Country (a region in Spain, let’s say, not unfamiliar to civil unrest and terrorism) and educated in the US—who has drawn from his travel and research experiences to write about violence and cultural production. My positionality is also important to contextualize that my primary interest is to read Colombia and its cultural production beyond national borders and within a framework of global flows, where cultures, people, and places circulate widely and, as a consequence, are constantly being reimagined.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

870 HER c

Penerbit

USA : Taylor & Francis., 2022

Deskripsi Fisik

201 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781003195702

Klasifikasi

870

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Latin Literatures

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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