“For me, speaking about the past is the best in the world, for them, the worst”: Social landscapes and territories of memory from displaced Colombian children

Abstract

The text analyses the memory of displacements of Colombian children, as a result of the armed conflict. To this end, a study was developed with 12 children, between the age of 8 and 12 years, and 5 mothers, belonging from rural areas from North Colombia, now living in Bogota periphery, who where displaced between 2008 and 2015. Visual methodologies (drawings, photography s and especially Google street view) were used to prompt children in articulating live narratives about the experience of displacement, as well as interviews with mothers. Children's memories where characterized by being spatially situated, making use of imagination and bodily experience on their narratives about the past. Differently from their mothers, children expressed the necessity to speak about the past, showing an idyllic perspective about their belonged territories and a profound sense of loss. The study reveals that children are active survivors, that constructed strategies of resistance against displacement in their daily lives, as well as agency in the production of narratives about the lived experience. Moreover, the study put focus on the importance to consider children, like adults, as subjects of memory, that give sense about themselves on the production of narratives.