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.