Fabio Lopez De la Roche
Professor, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Director Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales (IEPRI)
Peace Accord with FARC in Colombia: An Uncertain Process in the Midst of Political Polarization, Hatred, Fear and Hope
Abstract:
This presentation will emphasize the difficulties of the peace process with FARC and the political transition towards national reconciliation, related to the inheritance of hatred and fear left by an internal armed conflict of more than 50 years.
Special attention will be given to topics like forgiveness, memory of the armed conflict and the humanitarian crisis. Furthermore, this talk will examine the resilience or the ability to overcome trauma by the victims of war, in a society where the armed conflict left around 7 million forcefully displaced people, more than 200,000 dead and about 50,000 missing.
The speaker will accompany this presentation with photographic records of his authorship that will illustrate different phases and moments of the peace process between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC, between 2012 and 2017.
Fabio López de la Roche is a historian who in 1984 completed his BA and MA in Universal History at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. In 1993 he finished a Masters in the Analysis of Contemporary Political and International Affairs at the Universidad Externado in Bogotá, Colombia. Since 1996, López is an Associate Professor of the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, at the Institute of Political Studies and International Relations IEPRI, where he coordinates the Research Group called “Communication, Culture and Citizenship” recognized by Colciencias. In 2009 he obtained his PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of Pittsburgh, in the area of Cultural Studies. López de la Roche is a member of the academic team that in 2005 created the Master’s Program in Cultural Studies at the National University. Between 2002 and 2003, he was Director of the Institute of Studies in Communication and Culture IECO, of the same university. From 2010 to 2014 he directed the Master’s Program in Cultural Studies at the National University and, since November 2014, he is the Director of the Institute of Political Studies and International Relations – IEPRI, of the National University of Colombia.
López de la Roche has written numerous articles about Colombian political and cultural history during the 20th century. Since 1994, he has worked in the field of communication and mass media analysis, integrating interdisciplinary perspectives of political studies, media history, sociology, social communication and journalism, in the analysis of political and cultural influence of the media.
His publications include: Izquierdas y cultura política. Oposición alternativa? (The Left and political culture. Alternative opposition?) 1994; Cultura, medios y sociedad (Culture, media and society) (with Jesús Martín-Barbero), 1998; Modernidad y sociedad política en Colombia (Modernity and political society in Colombia) (with Eduardo Pizarro, and Miguel Eduardo Cárdenas), 1993; Memoria, museo y nación. Misión de los museos nacionales para los ciudadanos del future (Memory, museum and nation. The mission of national museums for the citizens of the future) (Gonzalo Sánchez et al.), 2002; “El periodismo: ese relegado objeto de estudio y de debate ciudadano,”; (Journalism: that relegated object of study and of citizen debate) in Diálogos de la Comunicación, 66 (Lima) 2003.
López de la Roche is co-author of the book Avances en los procesos de democratización de la comunicación en América Latina (Advances in the processes of democratization of communication in Latin America) (CLACSO, Buenos Aires, 2013). His last book, published in 2014 by Penguin Random House and IEPRI is titled: Las ficciones del poder. Patriotismo, medios de comunicación y reorientación afectiva de los colombianos bajo Uribe Vélez (2002-2010) (Fictions of power. Patriotism, media and affective reorientation of Colombians under Uribe Vélez (2002-2010).
In the last five years López de la Roche has been dedicated to the analysis of the peace process between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC and the role of journalism and mass media in the communication of such process.
Kim Tallbear
Associate Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta
Caretaking Relations, Not American Dreaming: #IdleNoMore, #BlackLivesMatter, and #NoDAPL
Abstract:
In this talk, I examine the caretaking of relations that I see embodied in several recent social movements led by women, two-spirit, and queer people. #IdleNoMore, #NoDAPL, and #BlackLivesMatter are commonly understood as environmental and/or social justice/anti-racist movements that call settler-colonial states, including the US and Canada, to make good on their treaty promises or civil and human rights law, to live up to their supposed dreams of liberty and inclusion. Since 2012, I have watched these movements unfold. Looming large in my vision fed by the 24-hour news cycle and more importantly by friends and colleagues on the ground of those movements and on social media, is Indigenous and black women and queer people caretaking their peoples. In the case of Indigenous-led movements, I also see a caretaking of other-than-human kin, the land and water—all our relations. In this moment of crisis and transition—new to some but ongoing for many—is an opportunity to unsettle the American Dream that brings violence to so many at home and abroad. Turning our redemptive attention away from empire to instead focus on caretaking relations defies a foundational settler-colonial narrative—that nature/culture binary that puts humans at the top of a hierarchy of life, and white men and the top of that. American dreaming is rooted in a vision that cannot see bodies in mutually sustaining relation. Rather, it objectifies black and brown bodies, women’s bodies, land and water bodies, and many bodies on down its hierarchy. The usually white men at the top—be they clergy, statesmen, or scientists—have long viewed it as their civilized prerogative to alternately exploit or steward all life forms. Their narratives have scripted this world in crisis. This talk proposes another productive story in its stead.
Kim TallBear is Associate Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta, and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience & Environment. She is building a research hub in Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society. Follow them at www.IndigenousSTS.com and @indigenous_sts. TallBear is author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science (University of Minnesota Press, 2013). Her Indigenous STS work recently turned to also address decolonial and Indigenous sexualities. She founded a University of Alberta arts-based research lab and co-produces the sexy storytelling show, Tipi Confessions, sparked by the popular Austin, Texas show, Bedpost Confessions. Building on lessons learned with geneticists about how race categories get settled, TallBear is working on a book that interrogates settler-colonial commitments to settlement in place, within disciplines, and within monogamous, state-sanctioned marriage. She is a citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in South Dakota. She tweets @KimTallBear and @CriticalPoly.