Move On: Forced Migration as an Experience in Social Space in Colombia, 1950–2007

Colombia has one of the highest numbers of internally displaced persons in the world due to decades of armed conflict. Most of these people, largely from rural areas, aim to reach the urban centers. There they hope for protection from violence and persecution and for social advancement. This hope for social advancement is based on the objectively greater educational opportunities they could have in the city. As well as the narrative of advancement propagated by socially recognized imaginaries in Colombian society.

In biographical narratives, the idea of social advancement condenses into the formula "salir adelante," “move on,” whose origin is closely related to the country's concept of progress. The development of the territory of the Cordilleras of the Andes, which is covered with primeval forest, was only possible because people, in search of better living conditions, pushed the agricultural frontier further and further.

Forced displacement, too, has long been perceived in this framework, and to some extent it still is. Thus, the experience of flight in Colombia became, above all, an experience of (possible) transit in social space. In this sense, arriving at a safer place meant the end of flight but also the beginning of a new journey toward the better life one aspired to – with an uncertain outcome. Only in recent years, since internal refugees have been defined by laws and their rights to reparation have been recognized, has this optimistic perception begun to change, with the experience of violence playing an increasingly meaningful role. In my paper, on the basis of biographical and framing texts (e.g., textbooks), I show how flight was constructed as transit in social space and then argue that this has changed in recent years due to a new social approach to forced displacement in the context of the current peace process.