Visibilizing Afro cultural connections and geopolitical dynamics in Nicaragua, Colombia, San Andrés and Providencia

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This project is based on the main themes that emerged from three workshops in Nicaragua, Colombia and the UK as part of an AHRC research networking project on the opportunities and challenges associated with the UN Decade for People of African Descent (AH/P006884/1 Afro-Latin (in)visibility and the UN Decade:Cultural politics in motion in Nicaragua, Colombia and the UK).These events, held in collaboration with URACCAN in Nicaragua and Carabantú in Colombia, were designed to examine the role of media and film in brokering transnational Afrodescendant connections in the Central America-Caribbean region. We have observed how film and media often mobilise tactics which disrupt territorial borders, and how audiovisual geographies offer crucial intercultural spaces where Afrodescendants can articulate their demands to diverse constituencies and confront entrenched colonial constructions.The case of the Colombian islands of San Andrés and Providencia is exemplary due to their complex geopolitical status, as a disputed territory between Colombia and Nicaragua; their cultural, historical and linguistic connections to the Nicaraguan Caribbean coast, and their Raizal Afro people who have been systematically sidelined by the Colombian state's investments in the archipelago, through mass tourism and displacement of population, putting extra pressure on resources and the sustainability of the environment. This follow-on project, 'Visibilizing Afro Cultural Connections and Geopolitical Dynamics in Nicaragua, Colombia, San Andrés and Providencia', brings the archipelago of San Andrés into our existing network and research programme, capitalizing different audiovisual strategies aiming to de-centre the Hispanophone and Anglophone Caribbean, complicating narratives of linguistic, territorial and cultural belonging, and bringing to the fore individual and collective Afrodescendant histories in order to build transnational Afro/Creole communities through radio, film and online media.Our main aim is to document and disseminate through a participatory community media approach the cultural, historical and familial connections between Nicaragua, Colombia and the islands, making visible Afrodescendant historical connections that have been disrupted by geopolitics.Media and film can often visibilize strategies of re-identification, abetting the fragmentation of cultural ties and overcoming perceived linguistic, geopolitical and national barriers.The project involves working closely with our Afrodescendant partners and their communities on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua (Bilwi and Bluefields), the archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia, and mainland Colombia (Bogotá and Medellin, which have relevant migrant population from the islands). Mobilizing the substantial experience of the Network in order to cascade our research findings horizontally to local Afrodescendant populations, in each of the places, we will develop a set of innovative textual and audiovisual resources via film, radio and internet that Afrodescendants can make use of in their pursuit of equality and development. As such, the funding would enable us and our partners in Nicaragua and Colombia to expand the benefits of the network to larger numbers of users and provide a set of tools that could help shape the development of public policy and political advocacy initiatives in the region. These outputs will connect explicitly to struggles for development and well-being, including those pertaining to the UN Decade for People of African Descent and the SDGs, helping Afrodescendant populations to overcome their cultural and political invisibility in their respective nation-states. This project will also enable us to develop a set of written and audiovisual texts which will, in the near future, allow us to produce a television series, co-funded by the Colombian television industry, about black historical connections between Nicaragua, Colombia and the archipelago of San Andrés.