Resilience as a City Brand: The Cases of the Comuna 13 and Moravia in Medellin, Colombia

Abstract

In Medellin, during this last decade, the municipality and the private sector have been very active in the reconstruction of the city’s war-torn image. With the acknowledged objective of attracting foreign investments and tourists, the second city of Colombia has been consecutively branded as “innovative”, “smart”, “sustainable” and lately as a “resilient city”. Since 2016 and the integration of the city as one of the first members of the “100 Resilient Cities” network pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, Medellin’s authorities have emphasised “urban resilience” as a core value of the city and its residents. Until now, few studies have put into perspective the notion of “branding” with that of “resilience”. By looking closely at discourses on the promotion of the city, as well as its burgeoning tourism sector, this article aims to fill this gap by providing a thorough analysis of the way urban resilience is used as a city-brand in a city still struggling to overcome high levels of violence. This study aims to show that antagonists’ visions of resilience are at stake when comparing the branding discourses of public authorities and the representations of self-settled communities who are at the centre of these narratives. While branding discourses praise the resilience of Medellin communities, many in these same communities tend to reject this vision of resilience as self-reliance (adaptation) and instead call for structural changes (transformation).

Ville et créativité

“…Pour ce musicien de rue, natif de la commune et menant son activité sur l'un des viaducs attenants aux escaliers, l'argent du tourisme a corrompu l'esprit du lieu : La résonnance globale de « las Escaleras », issue dans un premier temps de la volonté des autorités de faire de ce projet une vitrine de l'ur banisme social à l'international, et dans un deuxième temps de sa trans formation en objet touristique, l'a dévié de son objectif initial. Si le succès en termes touristiques est là, ce n'est pas le cas pour ce qui est de la mobilité des habitant•es, qui n'utilisent que peu les escaliers électriques (Naef 2020). Letty Reimerink (2018) a également observé comment dans le cas de « las Escaleras », la logique des planificateurs a divergé de celle de la population, reconnaissant néanmoins que cet ouv rage a contribué à renforcer la fierté des habitant•es pour leur quar tier.…”

Walls of resistance: Underground memories and political violence in Colombia

“…This was initially the case in Medellin, when the street art scene was flourishing. It offered commemorative and political space in a city where community discourses were often erased by hegemonic state narratives about its ‘miraculous’ transformation (Naef 2020 ; Samper and Marko 2015 ).…”

“…Due to their innovative nature, but also to the surrounding street art, they turned into a very popular tourist attraction. This urban project is now a posterchild of Medellin’s social improvement, but it has also become very controversial within the community (Naef 2020 , 2023 ). Gradually, after the creation in 2011 of the Graffitours by two local hop-hop artists, who presented the street art of the barrio, what began as a relatively underground touristic and memorial practice turned into mass tourism.…”

Organizational resilience as the mediator of relation between brand performance and organizational performance – reflections from the perspective of crisis times

“…Not much either explore resilience of brand attitudes (Sweldens et al, 2010). In the literature it can be also found investigation of resilience in relation to city (Naef, 2020) or nation (Tamaki, 2019) branding, although, it is worth noting that this is a very narrow and specific area.…”