Social Science Research Council

"Migrating Ecologies: Homegarden Practice among Displaced Persons from Rural Chocó, Colombia, Resettled in the City of Cartagena, Colombia

Colombia is currently experiencing one of the highest levels of internal displacement worldwide due to a violent struggle for control over territories. Often overlooked in research about rural-urban migration and the politics of resource control are the rural knowledges, practices and plant materials that move with people. As nearly 3 million people flee the countryside, rural landscapes are emerging in the middle of Colombia's urban centers. This suggests a massive restructuring of community relations and place-based land management practices. Internally displaced persons who flee to the urban periphery confront a difficult terrain as they rebuild homes, communities and the natural environment. This study will focus on the cultivation activities of internally displaced people from rural Chocó resettled in the city of Cartagena in order to demonstrate how nature-society relations are rebuilt after losing access to rural territory. My research project will involve homegarden inventories, participatory garden and resource mapping, in-depth semi-structured interviews, and participant observation. It also uses an innovative methodology focused on the life histories of plant materials to draw together the data collected from the "natural" and "social" worlds. My research will be centered around three questions: (1) How do rural displaced persons translate and reconfigure homegardens in the context of urban resettlement?; (2) How do they rebuild socio-material networks that move knowledges, practices and resources between people and places throughout the process of displacement and resettlement?; and (3) How do homegardens demonstrate the ways displaced persons shape their identities, communities and territories in chaotic and disempowering circumstances?