Dr. Claudia López’s Research Published
Dr. Claudia López’s ethnographic research on “double displacement” was recently published in Geographica Helvetica.
Dr. López’s article offers an empirical account of the emotionally charged processes involved in the social
production of territory. Drawing from ethnographic interviews with displaced leaders of socio-territorial movements
in Medellín, Colombia, who are resisting what Dr. López calls “double displacement.” First, they were displaced from
the Colombian countryside due to conflict and now, decades later, they are again being displaced, this time from
their informal settlements due to urban development. Founders of settlements are now leaders of social movements,
who reside on the periphery of the city and make claims to their neighborhoods using the slogan that
they have a “right to the territory”. This case of double displacement demonstrates the emotional and
political aspects of re-territorialization by non-state actors at the urban scale. Dr. López argues that by applying a socioterritorial
approach to examining the impact of double displacement, we recognize non-state territorialization as
a realization and expansion of social power.