Birds without Nests; Dwelling and Possibility in Colombia
Abstract
After more than half a century of war more than six million Colombians have been forced to leave their homes in search of safety. There are no camps to house the country’s displaced population who must rely on independent foundations for shelter or resort to precarious living arrangements amid strangers or in the streets. In my paper, I examine the trajectories of persons who, having escaped the violence in the hinterlands and after arriving to a new city, go about making new homes for themselves and their families. In particular I focus on the work of a shelter offering temporary housing to displaced persons, and the effects such efforts have on both the future material conditions of survival of displaced families, and on their outlooks of their futures. I approach this shelter as a space in which time can be put on hold and a sense of place can be remade. In this regard, my work focuses on dwelling, both as a lingering on that which has been lost, and a relationship with a space that signals stability and possibility. By focusing on the continuous and quotidian efforts to rebuild a sense of permanence through impermanent housing solutions, I strive to account for these families’ ongoing efforts to reckon with their dispossession and rebuild a sense of their possible futures. Following these families as they move out of the shelter and occupy houses of their own, I inquire into the senses of possibility that emerge for those who survive the crucible of war.
Bio
Sebastián Ramírez Hernández earned an undergraduate degree in Queens College, City University of New York, where he studied Anthropology and researched undocumented immigrants in New York City working for comprehensive immigration reform. The interest in questions of citizenship, marginality and political possibilities that emerged from that project drives his current project among internally displaced persons in Colombia. His research focuses on housing transitions among families who have been driven away from their homes because of the country’s ongoing war. He is interested in exploring the ways in which, through the process of finding homes and settling in new cities, internal refugees can begin to remake their lives and create novel communities.
[email protected]
After more than half a century of war more than six million Colombians have been forced to leave their homes in search of safety. There are no camps to house the country’s displaced population who must rely on independent foundations for shelter or resort to precarious living arrangements amid strangers or in the streets. In my paper, I examine the trajectories of persons who, having escaped the violence in the hinterlands and after arriving to a new city, go about making new homes for themselves and their families. In particular I focus on the work of a shelter offering temporary housing to displaced persons, and the effects such efforts have on both the future material conditions of survival of displaced families, and on their outlooks of their futures. I approach this shelter as a space in which time can be put on hold and a sense of place can be remade. In this regard, my work focuses on dwelling, both as a lingering on that which has been lost, and a relationship with a space that signals stability and possibility. By focusing on the continuous and quotidian efforts to rebuild a sense of permanence through impermanent housing solutions, I strive to account for these families’ ongoing efforts to reckon with their dispossession and rebuild a sense of their possible futures. Following these families as they move out of the shelter and occupy houses of their own, I inquire into the senses of possibility that emerge for those who survive the crucible of war.
Bio
Sebastián Ramírez Hernández earned an undergraduate degree in Queens College, City University of New York, where he studied Anthropology and researched undocumented immigrants in New York City working for comprehensive immigration reform. The interest in questions of citizenship, marginality and political possibilities that emerged from that project drives his current project among internally displaced persons in Colombia. His research focuses on housing transitions among families who have been driven away from their homes because of the country’s ongoing war. He is interested in exploring the ways in which, through the process of finding homes and settling in new cities, internal refugees can begin to remake their lives and create novel communities.
[email protected]