De invasión-asentamiento a barrio, 26 años después: una “mirada retrospectiva” a los cambios y continuidades urbanas en Popayán

Abstract

Urban anthropological research on the review of previous experiences in Colombia is scarce. This paper presents a retrospective analysis of two different moments in the author’s research experience: one, in an initial period, and another one, over a period of more than two decades, at a later time. The case study is presented in the periphery of Popayán, more precisely, in Commune 7 in the south of the city, in what is known today as the Solidarity neighborhood, but which was originally considered an “invasion.” The article examines the consolidation of ideas such as community organizing, urban identity, and social change from the time the neighborhood first appeared, in the wake of the 1983 earthquake, to the beginning of the 21st century. The experience presented constitutes a vital reference point for highlighting the importance of critically “looking back” on the ethnographic experience of the past, at the same time that it allows us to highlight the importance of this type of ethnographic exercise in different settings.

Keywords

• Identity
• social change
• urban anthropology
• self- reflexivity
• “looking back”