Reclaiming Territory Through Housing: Afro-Colombian Rural Movements and the Ethnogenesis of Habitat in the Post-Conflict Caribbean

Daniel Huertas Nadal ()
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Daniel Huertas Nadal: Architecture Department, School of Architecture and Design, University of Los Andes, Carrera 1 No. 18A-12, Bogotá 111711, DC, Colombia

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: This article explores how Afro-Colombian rural communities in the Caribbean region reclaim their territorial rights through the social construction of habitat. Drawing on four years of participatory action research with the Ma-Majarí Community Council in El Níspero, Montes de María, the study analyzes how traditional housing practices—rooted in ancestral knowledge, oral traditions, and collective memory—function as tools of cultural affirmation, political resistance, and re-peasantization in a post-conflict context. The research highlights the strategic role of Life Plans (Planes de Vida) as instruments of self-governance and territorial justice, challenging extractive development models and institutional neglect. Through visual ethnography, architectural surveys, and community-led housing initiatives, the study reveals how Afro-rural architecture embodies autonomy, resilience, and the right to remain in territory. Housing is not merely a physical structure but a living system of identity, memory, and future-making. This work contributes to broader debates on rural social movements, ethnodevelopment, and post-conflict reconstruction, proposing an architecture of recognition that centers cultural specificity and community agency.

Keywords: Afro-Colombian communities; rural social movements; territorial justice; re-peasantization; post-conflict Colombia; cultural identity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:10:p:2006-:d:1765882

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