"Incluir el Sentir del Pueblo": Healing la Comunidad Afrodescendiente from Collective Trauma in Kilombo Niara Sharay

Abstract

Motivated by the societal reconstruction required of the Colombian peace process, this thesis analyzes the ways in which a system of community health centers – kilombos – in Bogotá heals the community of African descent from the armed conflict. My research is primarily informed by in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with 4 kilombo staff members as well as participant observation at clinic sites, client visits and local meetings. Based upon this ethnographic work and an extensive literature review, I contend that the forced internal displacement of people of African descent in Colombia has engendered a collective trauma; this trauma is characterized by individual experiences understood within a communal narrative about the extraction of a people from the socioculturally significant homelands of the Pacific. Through attention to the philosophy and praxis of Kilombo Niara Sharay, I argue that this kilombo heals the collective from trauma by reimagining both identity and homeland. Furthermore, Kilombo Niara Sharay attempts to limit the possibility of further trauma by engaging with local institutions. At the intersection of resistance and assimilation, of remembering and recreating, the practices of Kilombo Niara Sharay often promote contradictory yet complementary ends. These complexities highlight the challenges faced by the population of African descent in engaging with a painful past and uncertain future in the context of Colombian peace.