Relying on 6 months of ethnographic research, in this paper I analyze the mobilization process started by a group of women that led to a symbolic act of intervention of the memorial monolith at the Center for Memory, Peace and Reconciliation (CMPR) in Bogotá, Colombia, between September 21- 23, during the celebration of the International Peace Day. The initiative, consisting of the covering of the monolith with fabrics representing a plurality of voices of actors directly affected by the armed conflict, constitutes the first stage of a symbolic claim for justice that is planned to reach its final goal with an intervention at the National Palace of Justice. The monolith was erected as a visible structure that signifies the growing responsibility of state institutions for the victims and the type of actions taken in order to restore their dignity in the context of the second stage of transitional justice that followed the passing of the Law 1448 "of Victims" in 2011. The collective intervention, led by a forcibly displaced Afro-descendant woman and human rights leader, does more than merely interrupt current official initiatives of commemoration and reconciliation. It also proposes new inclusive forms of inhabiting memorial sites as arenas for civic engagement, memory activism, and post-conflict community building. Through the use of fabrics, the initiative articulates a political vision that has the voice of the victims and their claims for justice as its underlying foundation.
This paper analyzes the complex meanings of the intervention into a public monument of historical and national significance in the context of the politics of memory in transitional Colombia. Drawing on Jacques Rancière's notion of disagreement, the paper focuses on the institutional transformations brought about by the act of the covering and the spaces for civic participation it enabled by opening the initiative to the citizenry and claiming a permanent space for autonomous memory praxis within the CMPR. I argue that by defending the principles of autonomy and plurality in memory construction and by actively contesting the official monopoly of symbolic reparation, the cultural practices and activism leading to this act make visible the struggles for inclusion and the claims for more democratic institutions during the post-conflict transition. This conference presentation includes the screening of a short ethnographic video documenting the intervention.
