The objective is to explore the touristification of some peripheral neighbourhoods of Medellin. The focus is on urban areas built by wardisplaced populations commonly referred to as 'comunas' and often associated with crime and narco-traffic. Some tours generally labelled as 'comuna tours' have been emerging the last three years and are largely included in the promotion of the 'new Medellin', focusing on its transformation from 'the most violent to the most innovative city in the world'. Examining the role of the different stakeholders, including local community leaders, private entrepreneurs or state representatives, it will show that this practice is above all multiform and has to be analysed along with the general process of city branding on-going in Medellin. Between the acknowledgment of past violent events and the will to look forward, competing narratives are at stake in this touristic and memorial arena.
Medellin was particularly affected by the war that began more than fifty years ago, and the ghost of its infamous cartel still haunts Colombia's second-largest city. However, it is now often singled out as a transformed city, and tourism is rapidly developing. In this context, local guides are now leading tourists in the footsteps of the notorious drug lord, Pablo Escobar. These tours usually include sites in Medellin related to Escobar, such as his grave or some of his former residences, one of which has been transformed into an informal museum by his brother, Roberto Escobar, who was the bookkeeper for the Medellin cartel. Although the memory of Pablo Escobar is certainly part of Colombian history, these tours are controversial, especially for local authorities who are trying to promote the image of a city recovering from its dark age of violence. This article explores the touristification of Medellin's narco-related past, taking a close look at the diverse stakeholders involved and the different narratives they produce. Focusing on socalled narco-tours or Pablo tours, it will look at the way they contribute to shaping the notion of "the familiar" and "the strange," which constitute the central theme of this special issue of the Journal of Anthropological Research.
Although, historically, there have always been travellers crossing the Balkan Peninsula, Todorova (1994) notes that early travellers were usually heading for important centres such as Constantinople or Jerusalem, and considered South-East Europe as a peripheral place where people were just passing through. The region is only really discovered in the eighteenth century along with an increasing interest in the East. More organised forms of tourism appear at the beginning of the nineteenth century, emerging first around railway lines and thermal therapy resources, and then expanding towards the coastlines. A large part of these developments took place in Croatia and the ‘Dalmatian Riviera’, but other regions also experienced the arrival of visitors and the first organised trip in Bosnia was proposed by Thomas Cook & Sons in 1898
Although tourism is already flourishing in some regions of Colombia, the country is still struggling to achieve peace. On 2 October 2016, just over half of the Columbian population rejected the peace deal negotiated by President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Two months later the nation's Congress finally ratified a renegotiated peace deal between the government and the largest guerrilla group of the country. After more than a half century of armed conflict, peace has never been so close, yet many Colombians are still reluctant to see former war actors such as the FARCs reintegrate civilian and political life. In the context of this long-lasting war, violence is memorialized in diverse and fragmented ways. Since the establishment of a national law for victims and the displaced in 2011, various memorial projects related to the armed conflict involving the Colombian army, paramilitaries and guerrillas have been cropping up all over the country. This marks a change, as memorial issues were not previously prevalent; most of the victims still felt vulnerable and consequently did not want to participate in any memorial processes. The law for victims and the displaced thus provided a more secure and favourable context for the emergence of memorial initiatives. The state has been active in the field of memory by supporting the construction of museums and documentary projects on the war, involving victims, academics and NGOs, the National Centre for Historical Memory being the principal example in this context. In parallel, alternative memorial productions relating to the war and the 'narcoheritage' (Naef, 2015) have started up. In Bogota and Medellin, both relatively tolerant environments regarding urban art, many murals flourish, illustrating themes associated with violence and social conflicts. These topics are also the focus of contemporary musical creations, from hip-hop to salsa, alternating between tributes to victims and narco-glorification. Moreover, while Mexico is famous for its narcocorridos (folk ballads focusing on the stories of drug smugglers), Colombia is also the cradle of many cultural productions, ranging from literature and narco-novelas (novels) to narco-soaps (soap operas). The cinema industry is similarly cashing in on this subject through the production of Colombian and international films, some of themlike Blow, featuring Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruzreaching a worldwide audience.
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