Abstract

FORERO ANGEL**, Ana María. The Colombian National Army and its Traumas: An Approach to Military Narratives of Sorrow and Disillusion. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2017, n.29, pp.41-61. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda29.2017.02.

The aim of this article is to examine the meanings which some senior officers of the Colombian Army attach to the institution´s traumas in their narratives and the meanings which some professional soldiers attach to their personal ones. With regard to the former, the senior officers are responsible for relations with the civilian elites, the people of the country and the enemy of the government, relations which are inscribed in and give life to their own version of Colombian history. As for the second, the professional soldiers find meanings for their experiences in combat and their relations with their fellow soldiers, their superiors and the civilian population. This article is based on material assembled during a field study undertaken in 2005 at the José María Córdova Military Cadet School, and in 2015-2016 at different bases of the Colombian National Army. To analyze the statements we recorded, the narratives should be understood as specific types of stories in which the subjects delimit a period of time, establish a number of topos (topics or central themes of the narrative) and give the story a beginning, a middle and an end (Jimeno 2016; Ryan 2007). I follow the approach of Catherine Lutz, who calls on anthropology to advance in the construction of a topography of power by assembling ethnographies of the institutions which dominate the destiny of nations.

Keywords : Army; Conflict; Colombia; narratives; anthropology of the State; anthropology of Institutions.

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