Dissertation Research: Identity Furmation and Politics in Columbia

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This project supports the dissertation research of a cultural anthropologist from the City University of New York. The project is to study the history of the development of a working class identity among people in Colombia, South America. The site of the project is Puerto Berrio, the site of an important strike by dock-workers in 1945. Using methods of archival research, family life histories and participant observation, the student will trace the development of a class identity among local workers and the role of national institutions such as unions, government agencies and the press in this identity formation. By tracing the effects of types of worker communities (miners, coffee-workers, railroad and dockworkers) on different political consciousness (radical, liberal, conservative), the project will test the hypotheses that prior labor participation in private or public sector work affected the radicalism of the developing worker identity. This research is important because it will advance our historical understanding of the development of worker identity in northern South America. The growth of Communist, Liberal and Conservative party ideologies has been an important part of worker identity in this general region. The advance in our knowledge to be produced by this project will be useful to explain the course of events in similar areas like Nicaragua. In addition this project will add to the nation's trained expertise about this important area of the world.