Abstract

MARTINEZ-BASALLO, Sandra Patricia. So Close, So Far from the State: Bureaucratized Activism and Afro-descendants in Colombia. CS [online]. 2023, n.39, pp.9-30.  Epub Sep 01, 2023. ISSN 2011-0324.  https://doi.org/10.18046/recs.i39.5277.

Recognizing the pluriethnic and multicultural character of the Colombian nation in the 1991 Constitution led to open various spaces of political representation and participation for Afro-descendant populations. The impact that this process has had on the institutionalization of the Afro-Colombian social movement has been widely studied; however, less attention has been paid to the interactions that take place in these spaces for dialogue. Based on the ethnography of Afro-descendant leaders' staging in one of these scenarios, we propose to unveil the boundaries between state and non-state actors. To understand the dual nature of the ethnic leader both as community representative and public servant, we propose the notion of bureaucratized activism. It encompasses at least three attributes: the acquisition of bureaucratic competencies, the staging of certain actions, and the performances of tradition.

Keywords : Bureaucratized Activism; Bureaucratic Competencies; Performance; Performances of Tradition; Afro-descendants.

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