The group was founded in 2000 by Urrutia, has about 70 members, and is based in Usme, a suburb of southern Bogotá. The members of AFROMUPAZ are displaced women from the Pacific coast, and all of them have survived episodes of battle-associated violence and multiple displacements. The Afro-Colombian women interviewed all through my research have experienced each conflict-associated and publish-Accord acts of violence. For instance, in 2010, lengthy after being displaced, María Eugenia Urrutia was kidnapped from the AFROMUPAZ workplace in Usme by different paramilitaries and was taken, along with her cousin , to the town of Mosquera.
Beyond this, AFROMUPAZ provides a social safety internet for displaced women. The organisation has a house in Usme, a poor neighbourhood in the south of Bogotá.
Here, women come daily to engage within the organisation’s small businesses; they make beauty products, sew clothes, and bake desserts. They have a nursery the place they can leave their children and are offered a hot lunch every single day. While the members of AFROMUPAZ don’t generate a wage yet, at the time of research they hoped to broaden their companies so that they now not have to seek informal employment exterior the organisation as well. One of the case studies for my doctoral analysis centered on the organisation AFROMUPAZ, the Asociación de Mujeres Afro por la Paz.
In this sense, mobilisation through the armed battle provided a prism to assess the methods in which violence in opposition https://yourmailorderbride.com/colombian-women/ to Afro-Colombian women was more than simply a query of battle-associated violence. Indeed, it was primarily based in historical, colonial legacies of racism.
The women of AFROMUPAZ, then, mobilised within this battle context, but in addition within the publish-conflict moment in order to shine a lightweight on the extra challenges faced by Afro-Colombian victims of the conflict. Auyero expands on this in his work about contentious identities; even after revolts subside, protestors think of these episodes in private phrases – “their lives have radically changed” . Importantly, lots of the Bogotá-born daughters of displaced people in AFROMUPAZ commented throughout the day how important it was for them not to overlook their roots. Particularly given ongoing dynamics of violence, they draw inspiration from their “moms, aunts, and grandmothers” who are the descendants of cimarronas, escaped slaves. This name again to the colonial period as soon as again highlight the understanding that although structural and gendered racism was made seen during the armed conflict, it nonetheless exists in the publish-conflict second.
Matamba members are nicely aware that different generations of ladies have been active in Bogotá for many years, and that they’ve “enabled many different young women to mobilise as well” . They readily recognize that they can pursue the methods they do because of the groundwork set by the previous generation. Moreover, given these linkages with older women, in addition they think about it necessary to connect with youthful generations as properly. They hold workshops with younger Afro-Colombian girls in marginalised neighbourhoods within the metropolis, specializing in subjects like sexual training and consent, as well as preserving Afro tradition. On the other hand, the Colectiva Matamba Acción Afrodiaspórica (Matamba Afro-Diasporic Action Collective) is an organisation of thirteen young Afro-Colombian women based in Bogotá.
AFROMUPAZ has a slightly different strategy to youthful generations. For these women, it’s about guaranteeing that the kids of displaced women do not continue to suffer ongoing violence, be this institutional or structural racism, or battle-associated violence. During an organisation-wide assembly, Urrutia was once moved to tears when discussing the trauma expressed by children of members. “It can’t be a baby’s function to get up to be strong daily… they have to be youngsters,” she mentioned .
Some had been born in Bogotá, while others suffered displacement from other components of the nation. The group describes itself as a bunch of “activists, empowered feminine warriors who show braveness and tenacity” .
Both generations of Afro-Colombian women recognise that an intersectional inclusion of Black women needs to be considered when talking about holistic and lasting views of safety – and equality more broadly – in Colombia. This paper has noted that the Colombian battle disproportionately impacted Afro-Colombian women, however that parts of this violence has its roots in structural racism that each predates and outlives the armed battle itself. The Matamba Collective, whose members for essentially the most half did not endure violence through the armed conflict itself, mobilise against the structural racism that was highlighted and addressed by women like those in AFROMUPAZ. Activism is conveyed by way of the generations given the transversality of structural and gendered racism beyond the bounds of the conflict/post-battle moment.
Although most of AFROMUPAZ members’ youngsters had been born in Bogotá, the organisation worries about ongoing trauma and racism that extends past the battle context. Such violence, for AFROMUPAZ, is clearly linked to ongoing patterns of racism and racist violence in Bogotá. What unites the two organisations, however, is the importance that both place on the role of intergenerational exchange, together with when challenging patterns of structural racism.