Chronicle of a tragedy foretold: the Pescadero Bridge under the waters of the capitalocene and its sympoietic memories in the art of re-existence

Article Sidebar

Crónica de una tragedia anunciada: el puente pescadero bajo las aguas del capitaloceno y sus memorias simpoiéticas en el arte de re-existir (Spanish)
Published: Dec 27, 2021
Keywords:
Waters, Capitalocene, Hydrocommunities, Sympoiesis

Main Article Content

Aimée Martínez Vega
Instituto Regional de Estudios Socio-Culturales (IRES-CONICET)
Estela Posada Mazo
Asociación de víctimas y afectados por megaproyectos (ASVAM ITUANGO) - Organización de Mujeres AMARÚ
Horacio Machado Aráoz
Instituto Regional de Estudios Socioculturales (IRES-CONICET-UNCA)

Abstract

In 2018, the Pescadero bridge, next to the Cauca river canyon (Colombia), was flooded. This territory is part of the sedimentation of layers of colonial violence, which, in successive historical-political waves, at the rate of fluctuating development cycles, has been invading pre-existing territorialities, destroying landscapes and creating ruins of "progress". Also, in this territory, the hydrocommunal web has been reweaving despite everything, making life re-sprout and looking for new channels. In this framework, this writing offers an analysis of the expropriation logics in the era of the Capitalocene, with the imposition of works, in front of which the riverside hydrocommunities and their memories are forced to re-exist.To do this, first, we will make a contextualization of the Cauca river canyon before the short modern life of the Pescadero bridge, built in 1963. Then, we will reconstruct the events of the '70s that, together with the energy demand, detonated this last wave of dispossession, concocted in the' 90s under the roar of political-paramilitary violence, and perpetrated in the last two decades with the imposition of the Hidroituango hydroelectric plant. The analysis seeks to account for the sociometabolic disorders caused by this work. Finally, we will share the inner horizons of the Rios Vivos Movement, as a pedagogical-political warp bent on recreating the sympoietic force of landscapes of conviviality.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

How to Cite
Martínez Vega, A., Posada Mazo, E., & Machado Aráoz, H. (2021). Chronicle of a tragedy foretold: the Pescadero Bridge under the waters of the capitalocene and its sympoietic memories in the art of re-existence. Heterotopías, 4(8), 1-34. https://revistas.psi.unc.edu.ar/index.php/heterotopias/article/view/36163
Issue
Vol. 4 No. 8 (2021): “Estética, política y naturaleza: lenguajes y experiencias ecopoéticas".
Section
Dossier
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Those authors who have publications with this journal, accept the following terms: Those authors who have publications with this journal, accept the following terms:


a. The authors will keep their copyright and guarantee to the journal the right of first publication of their work, which will be simultaneously subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - Non-Commercial - Share Alike (by-nc-sa) Attribution License; no commercial use of the original work or any derivative works is allowed, the distribution of which must be done with a license equal to the one that regulates the original work.

b. Authors may adopt other non-exclusive license agreements for the distribution of the published version of the work (e.g., deposit it in an institutional telematic archive or publish it in a monographic volume) provided that the initial publication in this journal is indicated.

c. Authors are allowed and recommended to disseminate their work through the Internet (e.g. in institutional telematic archives or on their website) before and during the submission process, which may lead to interesting exchanges and increase the number of citations of the published work. (See The effect of open access).

 

Author Biographies

Aimée Martínez Vega, Instituto Regional de Estudios Socio-Culturales (IRES-CONICET)

Aimeé Patricia Martínez Vega. (Colombia) Woman defender of water and life. Member of the women's association AMARÚ, adherent to the Ríos Vivos Antioquia Movement, Colombia, which is made up of victims affected by the hydro-energy extractive megaproject Hidroituango, of Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM). During the years of accompaniment to the movement, it has been working in co-labor from the perspective of women in rebellion who struggle to unravel the patriarchal, racist and classist traces that are linked to the different waves of political violence for plundering, where women and nature are the main victims and affected.

In the construction of networks that work for the care of all life, she is part of the director of the network of people affected by International Financial Institutions (IFI's) and an active member of the Early Warning System for investments in Latin America. She is also an active member of the Early Warning System for investments in Latin America and an active member of the Early Warning System for investments in Latin America, wherein particular she criticizes development, defends the way of life of the different territorialities, and opposes mining and energy projects that make water a commodity.

She is a professional in Social Work (Universidad Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca). She has experience in community work with victims of armed conflict. She is currently a doctoral fellow of IRES-CONICET-UNCa and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Agrarian Social Studies (Center for Advanced Studies, National University of Cordoba, Argentina). She is conducting comparative research between the region of Antioquia (COL) and Catamarca (AR) that links a critique of the extractive projects of green and clean economies that today, once again, are shifting borders and affecting communities in the global south. She also integrates and is nourished by participating in the team of Ecología Política del Sur (Catamarca), being the political ecology of water her main interest from where she constructs onto-epistemically part of his defense for life.

In the last years, she participated in an investigation to know the current impacts in the framework of rights due to the installation of a lithium mining company in the locality of Fiambalá, in an area of high Andean lagoons, entitled "Transnational Lithium Mining in High Andean Lagoons of Catamarca. Liex S.A. Case".

aimee.martinez.vega@gmail.com

 

Estela Posada Mazo, Asociación de víctimas y afectados por megaproyectos (ASVAM ITUANGO) - Organización de Mujeres AMARÚ

Rudy Estela Posada Mazo. (Colombia) Human Rights and Nature Defender. Peasant woman, barequera, and weaver. Mother of two children and grandmother of two grandchildren. A passionate collector of stones, a woman with the aroma of tropical dry forest, river, and mountain. Lover of biodiversity and birdsong.

For eleven years she has been a member of the association ASVAM ITUANGO (Association of victims and affected by megaprojects) and the women's organization AMARÚ, which fights for the defense of life and territories. Both organizations are members of the Ríos Vivos Antioquia Movement, Colombia, which is made up of victims affected by the Hidroituango extractive megaproject of Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM).

Since the construction of the Hidroituango hydroelectric dam, she has been the victim of six evictions from the beaches of the Cauca River, where she built her home and settled her family. These evictions have not only wiped out her property but have especially affected the construction of the barequera and fishing community of the Cauca River canyon.

As a defender of the territories, she opposes mining concessions and the use of the river as a commodity for the construction of hydroelectric complexes; she fervently denounces the shortcomings and neglect of the state in rural Colombia and rejects state militarization, as well as the conflict that arises from the struggles and territorial control by illegal groups.

In the process of struggle and resistance, she has highlighted the importance of women in them, defending the vindication of their rights, their symbiotic relationship with nature, and their empowerment. In addition, she promoted the creation of the association of women affected by "Hidroituango" AMARÚ, and undertook the denunciation of the multiple victimizations by the hydroelectric extractive megaproject Hidroituango towards women.

In 2018, she traveled to Europe through the Temporary Shelter for Human Rights Defenders program in the city of Madrid. There, she went on a tour to talk with some members of academia, diplomats, and bankers about the effects that their countries' investments were having on their territory, especially on women.

 

Horacio Machado Aráoz, Instituto Regional de Estudios Socioculturales (IRES-CONICET-UNCA)

Horacio Machado Aráoz (Catamarca, Argentina) has a degree in Political Science (Catholic University of Córdoba), a diploma in Social Planning for Local Development (Sur-Cepal, Santiago de Chile), a Master's degree in Social Sciences, and a PhD in Human Sciences (National University of Catamarca). His PhD thesis ("Mineral Nature: A Political Ecology of Modern Colonialism", 2012) addresses the investigation of transnational mining as one of the key veins of the colonial sociometabolism of capital and the historical-geographical constitution of Western hegemony.

He works as adjunct researcher of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONICET, Argentina) coordinating the Research Collective of Political Ecology of the South, at the Regional Institute of Sociocultural Studies (IRES-CONICET-UNCA http://www.ecologiapoliticadelsur.com.ar/) and as Professor of the Chair of Sociology (Faculty of Humanities, National Univ. of Catamarca).

His field of research, Political Ecology of the South, includes studies on the modern forms of social production of "Nature" conceived as a central factor in the ontogenetic structuring of the capitalist-colonial-patriarchal pattern of power as the axis of world domination. Within this framework, she has taught courses and postgraduate seminars in several Latin American study centers and has published several texts in scientific journals, parts of books and books, among them, "Mineração, genealogia do desastre. O extrativismo na América como origem da modernidade" (Editora Elefante, Sao Paulo, 2020), "Potosí, el origen. Genealogía de la minería contemporánea" (Various editions), "Economía Política del Clientelismo. Democracia y Capitalismo en los márgenes" (Grupo Editorial Encuentro, Córdoba, 2007); "15 Mitos y realidades de la minería transnacional en la Argentina" (Herramienta Ediciones, Buenos Aires, 2011, co-authored with Maristella Svampa, Norma Giarracca, Mirta Antonelli et. Alt.).

Along with academic work, she has participated in various assembly spaces in defense of the territories, learning and encouraging together with socio-territorial movements in the region on civilizational disputes around the reappropriation of Nature and the construction of emancipatory horizons from popular environmentalism.

 

How to Cite

Martínez Vega, A., Posada Mazo, E., & Machado Aráoz, H. (2021). Chronicle of a tragedy foretold: the Pescadero Bridge under the waters of the capitalocene and its sympoietic memories in the art of re-existence. Heterotopías, 4(8), 1-34. https://revistas.psi.unc.edu.ar/index.php/heterotopias/article/view/36163

References

Arrojo, P. (2010) Crisis global del agua: valores y derechos en juego. Barcelona: Fespinal.

Bachelard (1978) El agua y los sueños. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Barlow, M. (2008) El convenio azul: la crisis global del agua y la batalla futura por el derecho al agua. Santiago de Chile: Fundación Heinrich Böll

Brand & Wissen (2021) Modo de vida imperial. Vida cotidiana y crisis ecológica del capitalismo. Buenos Aires: Tinta Limón.

Botero Arcila, S. H., Muñoz, D. P., & Ortiz Cano, A. (2011). Nuevos datos acerca del patrón funerario en el cañón del río cauca. Boletín de Antropología, 203-230.

Buitrago Londoño, A., Tovar, A. P., Mejía, E. C., Valenzuela, F., Silva Romero, R., & Bertrand, S. (2015). Valores de nuestra historia. Medellin: EPM.

Burkett, P. (1999) Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective. New York: Palgrave.

Cardona Velásquez, L. C. (2001). Occidente Medio Antioqueño : poblamiento antiguo, hitos culturales y construcción del territorio. Medellin : CORANTIOQUIA; Universidad de Antioquia.

Carrillo, M. (2010) "Energía hidroeléctrica y sostenibilidad". En América sumergida. Impactos de los nuevos proyectos hidroeléctricos en América Latina y el Caribe. María Fernández y Miquel Carrillo (Coords.). Barcelona: Icaria.

Castillo Espitia, N. (1988). “Las sociedades indígenas prehispánicas”. Historia de Antioquia, Jorge Melo, editor, 23-40.

Comunidades pescadoras y barequeras del cañon del río Cauca. (Enero de 2020). Entrevista para la Comisión de la verdad contada por Rios Vivos Colombia. (C. Fiallo, Entrevistador, & A. Martínez Vega, Editor)

CMR (2000) Represas y desarrollo. Un nuevo marco para la toma de decisiones. San José de Costa Rica: Global Water Centroamérica - Comisión Mundial de Represas.

D'Souza, R. (2008) "El marco de la crisis hidráulica de la India: la política de las grandes presas modernas". Monthly Review vol. 60, nº 3, julio-agosto de 2008, pp. 112-124.

Duque, M., & Espinosa, I. D. (1994). Historia y cultura de la población Nutabe en Antioquia. Medellin : Universidad de Antioquia.

Escobar, A. (2007) La invención del Tercer Mundo. Construcción y deconstrucción del desarrollo. Caracas: El perro y la rana.

Foladori, G. (2001) “O metabolismo com a natureza”. En: Crítica Marxista, 12 105-117. São Paulo: Boitempo.

Foster, J. B. (2004) La ecología de Marx. Materialismo y naturaleza. Madrid: El Viejo Topo.

Fernández, M. (2010) "Reseña histórica de los proyectos hidroeléctricos en América Latina". En América sumergida. Impactos de los nuevos proyectos hidroeléctricos en América Latina y el Caribe. María Fernández y Miquel Carrillo (Coords.). Barcelona: Icaria.

Goubert, J. P. (1989) L'eau, la crise et le remede dans l'Anciene et le Nouveau Mondee (1840-1900). Annales ESC, 5.

Gras, A. (2009) "El agua al servicio del fuego". En Estudios Culturales, Vol. 2, N° 4, Julio- diciembre de 2009, pps.67-79. Valencia, Venezuela: Universidad de Carabobo.

Guerrero Arias, P. (2010). Corazonar desde las sabidurías insurgentes el sentido de las epistemologías dominantes, para construir sentidos otros de la existencia. Sophía, 101-146.

Haesbaert, R. (2002) “Territórios alternativos”. Niteroi: Contexto.

-------------------------- (2004) “O Mito da Desterritorialização: do fim dos territórios a multiterritorialidade”. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil.

Haraway, D. (2017). Pensamiento tentacular antropoceno, capitaloceno, Chthuluceno . Errata, 54-97.

----------------------- (2019). Seguir con el problema. Generar parentesco en el Chuthulceno. Bilbao: Consonni.

Harvey, D. (2004). “El ‘nuevo’ Imperialismo: acumulación por desposesión”. En Socialist Register N° 40, El nuevo desafío imperial. Buenos Aires: Clacso.

Herrera Correa, C. M., & Tejada Holguin, J. A. (2018). Recuperación histórica de la memoria del puente "Juan de la Cruz Posada" y su relevancia para los municipios de Ituango y Toledo. Medellin : Instituto de cultura y patrimonio de Antioquia; EPM; Gobernación de Antioquia.

Hidroeléctrica Ituango S.A. E.S.P. (2011). Del sueño a la realidad. Medellin: Hidroeléctrica Ituango S.A. E.S.P.

Holdridge, L. (1982). Ecología basada en zonas de vida. San José, Costa Rica: Instituto Interamericano de cooperación para la agricultura.

Latour, B. (2017) Cara a cara con el planeta. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.

Luxemburgo, R. [1912] “La Acumulación del Capital”, Edicions Internacionals Sedov, www.grupgerminal.org

Marx (1867) El Capital. En www.marxists.org

Machado Aráoz, H. (2010)A "Agua y Minería Transnacional. Desigualdades hídricas e implicaciones biopolíticas". Revista Proyección N° 9, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, diciembre de 2010. Págs. 61-90.

-------------------- (2010)B "La naturaleza como objeto colonial". Onteaiken N° 10, Boletín sobre Prácticas y Estudios de Acción Colectiva., Centro de Estudios Avanzados, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Córdoba, noviembre de 2010. Págs. 35-47.

-------------------- (2014) Potosí, el origen. Genealogía de la minería contemporánea. Buenos Aires: Mardulce.

-------------------- (2015) “Marx, (los) marxismo(s) y la ecología. Notas para un alegato ecosocialista”. Revista GEOgraphia, Vol. 17, N° 34. Universidade Federal Fluminense. Pp. 09-38.

-------------------- (2016) “Ecología Política de los regímenes extractivistas. De reconfiguraciones imperiales y re-existencias decoloniales en Nuestra América. Revista Bajo el Volcán, vol. 15, N° 23, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, pp. 11-51.

-------------------- (2017) “Extractivismo minero y fractura sociometabólica. El caso de Minera Alumbrera Ltd., a veinte años de explotación”. (En colaboración con Leonardo Rossi) RevIISE | Vol 10 Año 10 , UNSJ. pp. 273-286

-------------------- (2020) “La minería colonial y las raíces del Capitaloceno: Habitus extractivista y mineralización de la condición humana”. Ambientes, Revista de Geografia e Ecologia Política, Volume 2, Número 1, 2020, pp. 65-97

Maya Restrepo, A. (1993). Las Brujas de Zaragoza: un caso de resistencia y cimarronaje cultural en las minas de Antioquia (1619-1622). En A. Ulloa, Constribución Africana a la cultura de las Américas. Memorias del coloquio contribución africana a la cultura de las Américas (págs. 255-266). Bogotá: Proyecto Biopacifico; Instituto Colombiano de Antropología; Colcultura.

Maya Restrepo, A., & Cristancho, R. (2015). ¡Mandinga sea! Africa en Antioquia. Medellin: Ediciones Uniandes.

Múnera López, L. F. (2018). El puente de occidente y la integración de Antioquia. Medellín: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Minas.

Ortiz Mesa, L. J. (2008). Antioquia durante la federación 1850-1885. Anuario Historia Regional Y De Las Fronteras , 1-22.

Polanyi, K. (2007) La Gran Transformación. Los orígenes políticos y económicos de nuestro tiempo. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Porto Goncalves, C. (2002) "Da Geografia às Geo-Grafias. Um mundo em busca de novas territorialidades". En La guerra infinita. Hegemonía y terror mundial, Sader, E. y Ceceña, A. (Orgs.). Buenos Aires: Clacso.

-------------------(2006) "A Reinvencâo dos Territórios: a experiencia latino-amêricana e caribenha”. En Los desafíos de las emancipaciones en un contexto militarizado, Ceceña, Ana E., (Coord.). Buenos Aires: Clacso.

Posado Mazo, E. (2021). Dialogo sobre el puente Pescadero. (A. Martínez Vega, & H. Machado Aráoz, Entrevistadores)

Rist, G. (1996) Le devéloppement. Historie d'une croyance occidentale. París: Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques.

Rivera Cusicanqui, S. (2010). Ch'ixinakax Utxiwa. Una reflexión sobre prácticas y discursos descolonizadores. Buenos Aires: Tinta Limón.

--------------------------------- (2018). Un mundo Chíxi es posible. Ensayos desde un presente en crisis. Buenos Aires: Tinta Limón.

Sacher, W. (2016) "La fractura metabólica de J.B. Foster: ¿qué aportes para una toría ecomarxista?". En Actuel Marx Intervenciones N°19. PP. 33-60.

Santos, M. (1996) De la Totalidad al Lugar. Oikos-Tau, Barcelona.

Shiva, V. (2003). Las Guerras del Agua. Privatización, contaminación y lucro. México: Siglo XXI.

Souza Santos, B. (2009) Una epistemología del Sur. Clacso, Siglo XXI, México.

Tamayo Belda, A. & Carrasco Vintimilla (2020) “Corrientes que convergen: el debate teórico sobre el agua. Entrevistas a Aziza Akhmouch, Jamie Linton, Naho Mirumachi y Mark Zeitoun”, Relaciones Internacionales, nº 45, pp. 15-30.

Tsing, A. (2011). La naturaleza en construcción. En L. Montenegro Martínez, Cultura y Naturaleza (págs. 195-226). Bogotá: Jardín Botánico de Bogotá, José Celestino Mutis.

-----------------(2017) The Buck, the Bull, and the Dream of the Stag: Some unexpected weeds of the Anthropocene. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 42(1), 3–21. Retrieved from https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/65084

---------------- (2019) Viver nas ruínas: paisagens multiespécies no Antropoceno. Brasilia: Mil Folhas.

Vargas & Piñeyro (2005) El hidroscopio. Montevideo: PNUMA.

West C., R. (1972). La minería de aluvión en Colombia durante el periodo colonial. (J. O. Melo, Trad.) Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional.

Woster, D. (2008) Transformaciones de la Tierra. Montevideo: Coscoroba.

Zavaleta Mercado (1982) “Problemas de la determinación dependiente y la forma primordial”. En Bruna, S. et Alt. (Ed.) América Latina: desarrollo y perspectivas democráticas. San José de Costa Rica: FLACSO.