Policy Paper: Mobilisation, Resistance and Popular Memory

Reflections from Santiago de Chile and Santiago de Cali.

Available as PDF in English:

García Pinzón, V., & Rodríguez, F. (2025). Mobilisation, Resistance and Popular Memory — Reflections from Santiago de Chile and Santiago de Cali. Policy Paper No. 2, BMBF-Network Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict, Freiburg. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15399372

protests, social revolt, violence, urban space

About this Policy Paper:

Scientific scholarship does not always recognize the knowledges produced by activist actors as valid or rigorous, often marginalizing their insights from academic and policy-oriented debates. This exclusion is both problematic and paradoxical, particularly given that those most directly affected by (state) violence in its various manifestations are continuously engaged in critical inquiry —analyzing the conditions that shape their lives and actively developing responses and pathways out of politically complex, often violent, situations. As authors of this policy paper, we are primarily concerned with creating a communication channel to uplift activist and academic voices, thereby contributing to position them at the center in both scientific and practice-oriented discussions. In March 2024, we met virtually with social movements and activists from the cities of Santiago de Chile and Santiago de Cali (Colombia) for an exchange of experiences and reflections on the mass protests that took place at different times between 2019 and 2021 in each city. This document compiles the key reflections from the exchange. It aims to convey the insights of an illustrated policy report originally written and published in Spanish. This translated English version seeks to reach a broader audience at the intersection of urban protests, the politics of memory, and repertoires of resistance —including civil society organizations, international donors, activists, journalists, and artists. This policy paper tells the story of the storymakers —of those whose lived experiences and reflections offer indispensable knowledge for rethinking justice, memory, and political transformation.

Viviana García Pinzón & Fabricio Rodríguez

Viviana García Pinzón and Fabricio Rodríguez are senior researchers at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute (ABI) and members of the network “Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace & Conflict”. In the framework of the network, their research addresses conflict and peace in urban contexts. Inspired by decolonial debates, their aim is to understand and confront epistemic hierarchies in academia by drawing on the political practice that takes shape and dynamism in the streets of Latin America.

Art & illustrations

The artistic illustrations of this policy paper were developed by Iván Garzón Mayorga in collaboration with Paula Rodríguez.

Acknowledgments

This policy paper gathers reflections that emerged in dialogue with social movements and activists in Chile and Colombia. From Chile: Corporación Umbrales, Movimiento Rangiñtulewfü and Movimiento por el Agua y los Territorios MAT. From Colombia: Juntanza Popular por la Transformación Social, Radiofónicas and Tribunal Popular de Siloé.

This contribution is part of the research project ‘Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace & Conflict’ [grant number 01UG2205D], funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Upcoming

Classic Approaches to Security

Traditionally, only states were actors of security in security research. This meant that states were seen as the ones who act and who were capable of performing security in the international arena, at least in the eyes of International Relations canon and particularly in terms of military security (Morgenthau, 1954; Waltz, 2001, 2010). However, after the end of the Cold War and the subsequent widening of the security agenda, new research laid more emphasis on the social construction of security (Katzenstein, 1996), and since the development of these new approaches to security the field has made substantial progress in understanding, conceptualising and utilising empirical and conceptual insights in the dynamics of producing, ordering and maintaining security within and beyond the state’s framework. These further developments range from security communities (Adler & Barnett, 1996, 2008) to the various constructions, controversies and (re-)negotiation of security and order in public-private relations (Abrahamsen & Williams, 2009, 2010) and hybrid security governance (Schröder, Chappuis, & Kocak, 2014).

How to cite this entry:

Ketzmerick-Calandrino 2024: “Security. Speaking with Fanon?”. Virtual Encyclopaedia – Rewriting Peace and Conflict. 08.10.2024. https://rewritingpeaceandconflict.net/security-speaking-with-fanon/.