Ecologies of Search: Disappearances, Temporalities and Frictions in the Colombian Post-Agreement

Following the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP), the humanitarian search for all persons disappeared due to the war in Colombia opens new and unprecedented transitional scenarios. At the same time, it implies a series of challenges for the actors involved where practices and knowledge emerge in temporal and spatial frictions. The article proposes the notion of ecologies of search to explore the temporalities of uncertainty implied by disappearance, the bureaucratic temporalities configured through state humanitarianism, and the geographical temporalities of the spatiality of war and post-agreement. Exploring confluences and collisions between these temporalities, considered as inconclusive and dynamic forms of becoming, I approach rhythms, directionalities and temporal-spatial markings that configure the ecologies of the search in the current and murky Colombian transitional context.

Duke Scholars

Author John Sabogal Venegas