Territory, Dispossession and Resistance in the Black Spanish Caribbean

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This thesis examined how communities of descendants of runaway slaves in the Colombian Caribbean have experiencedland grabbing since the 17th century by the actions of the state, white-elite landowners and armed groups; and how thesecommunities have developed legal and non-legal strategies to resist collective land loss since then. Some of thecommunities' strategies of resistance have their roots in the practice of marronage. Marronage was the act of Africanmen and women escaping from slavery in the cities, large farms, and mines to establish autonomous communities inremote and inaccessible areas. These communities in Colombia were known as palenques (Navarrete 2003; McFarlane2008). The subject of my research, San Basilio de Palenque (San Basilio), in Northern Colombia, was one of the palenques,who signed a peace treaty in 1714 with the colonial authorities obtaining freedom and territory. San Basilio is stillinhabited by the descendants of runaway slaves (Navarrete 2008; Cassiani 2014; Castaño 2015). Due todeterritorialisation, violence and poverty, some of its residents have migrated beyond its borders to form newcommunities in cities and rural areas from which they have fought to retain their identity and ties to San Basilio. Thesemigratory communities with San Basilio create a network of territories that share common strategies of resistance againstland grabbing. Using qualitative research methods, such as archival research, semi-structured interviews andcommunity-based or participatory mapping, the study made a number of key findings:(1) that the colonial strategy ofmarronage (to create space to overcome uprootedness) is still the basis of current community strategies to resist landloss; and (2)that the discourse of land rights deployed by the Colombian state, far from protecting the community, infact, contributed to land grabbing. This legal discourse constructs the territory of San Basilio as an empty space with nooccupants denying its history of marronage and ownership of their lands since 1714. This construction of the space ofSan Basilio as vacant has allowed its grabbing by armed groups, business companies and white-elite landowners.The fellowship will strengthen my research experience through four fellowship outcomes towards a full-time academicposition in a UK leading university while creating a positive impact on disadvantaged communities:1) Two articles from my doctoral thesis will be published in high-ranking journals targeting a broad audience thatincludes academic and non-academic users. I will also publish a brief for the use of stakeholders to inform thecommunity land rights agenda.2) A workshop for the dissemination of the brief and doctoral findings will bring together academics andstakeholders to identify a common action plan for land restitution for the black communities of the ColombianCaribbean. The results of this workshop will be presented in a seminar that I aim to organise along with the SCSin the Royal Geographical Society Conference.3) A one-month placement will take place in a centre specialised in Race Studies in the Pontificia UniversidadJaveriana in Colombia promoting dissemination, networking, and knowledge exchange between differentpatterns of forced displacement occurred in black communities in the Pacific (the centre's expertise) and in theCaribbean (my thesis study). It will also identify academics to join the stakeholders' s workshop.4) A one-month pilot study including semi-structured interviews and participatory mapping will be conducted inblack districts of members of San Basilio in Panama City. This new case study will address the unexplored4transnational forced migration of the black communities of the Colombian Caribbean. This study will allow meto become an expert in the intersections between race and the production of spaces of the black communities inthe Spanish Caribbean, and more broadly in Latin America