PhD defence: Irene Velez Torres

Irene Velez Torres defends her PhD thesis: 

Political geographies of displacement by dispossession in Colombia. The case of afrodescendant communities in the Alto Cauca

Principal Supervisor
Associated Professor Jytte Agergaard, IGN, UCPH 

Co-Supervisor
Professor Katherine Gough, Loughborough University, UK

Assessment Committee
Associate Professor Ole Mertz, IGN, UCPH (chair)
Associate Professor Ulrich Oslender, Florida International University, USA
Senior researcher Finn Stepputat, Danish Institute for International Studies, DK               

Abstract
Over the last six decades, dispossession in the development and extractivist economic models has forced afrodescendants into motion; it has also compelled a change in local livelihoods that has deepened impoverishment and historical marginalization. This study uses the high basin of the Cauca River as a geopolitical scale for analysing features of the socio environmental conflicts that have generated displacement in Colombia. It critically addresses the matrix of actors and interests that interlock in these disputes in their attempt to access and control land based resources, and the ways in which unequal power relations have forced local afrodescendants to migrate. While economic models of accumulation have been supported by the government and international financial institutions, this research turns the attention to the official discourses and policies that have limited the local communities’ capacity to control their territory. From an activist position and   by   using   a participatory and action oriented approach, this study explores how afrodescendants have  defended La Toma as an ancestral territory through a translocal community building process.

The thesis is available from the PhD administration office 04.1.409

After the PhD defence there will be a reception in ’Rød Stue’, Øster Voldgade 10, Area 6, First floor – and everybody is welcome.