Voyage, sancocho and river Memory and forgetting on armed conflict in Pance, Cali

Abstract

This article explores the memoirs of entrepreneurs from the Pance River, in Cali, Colombia, by using an ethnographic perspective. The journey through their memories emphasizes two moments: the violence they experienced during three confrontations between guerrilla groups and the police, which left civilians in the crossfire, and the link with the socio-environmental projects in the region. The interviewees reminiscences
tend to make invisible their experiences in the armed conflict in order to protect the survival of the community, of their ecosystems, and of the traditional Sunday trips to the river; these are their main sources of living in the present and future. This study offers significant clues on the hegemonies of the memoirs and on how some daily experiences within the armed conflict became culturally trivial.