Bridging worlds : movement, relatedness and social change in two communities of Cartagena de Indias Bay

Abstract

The island of Barú, located along the Atlantic coast of Colombia, has occupied, since the colonial era, a geographical and social interstitial position. The island was a strategic space in key processes and events of colonial and national modernity. Its inhabitants have combined movement and interaction across geographical spaces and social groups with retreat and relative closure. The historical experiences of dislocation and of marginality have shaped local modes of relatedness and particular ways of signifying and narrating “family”, masculinities and femininities, the divine and the wondrous. State and capital’s progressive encroachment over the Island trans-territory has recently undergone a conspicuous acceleration. Moreover, new religious organizations have influenced the ways in which people think and talk about identity, local forms of sociality and religiosity. “Development” and ethnicity-based identity politics have functioned as identity-, community- and memory (re-)making devices. Various political and economic actors currently envision and try to implement projects of “place” which commoditize the island and aim to reshape local subjectivities and relational modes according to market-oriented values.