Paper short abstract:

The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, Colombia, declared themselves neutral to the armed conflict; they also produce fair trade cacao. Two narratives combine in their collective identity: the 'radical' and 'organic' narratives, which mutually engender each other in a reciprocal circularity.

Paper long abstract:

This paper carries out an ethnographic con-textualisation of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, a peasant farmer community in Urabá who declared themselves 'neutral' to the Colombian armed conflict in 1997. Two narratives, understood as cultural practices with historical trajectories, co-exist in their collective identity. These combine with other embodied practices of their daily life, such as their production of cocoa. The radical narrative is the frame according to which the Community interprets politics, constituted via the genealogy of a 'rupture' with the state and the creation of an internal logic. The organic narrative is the way in which the Community perceives their relationship to the environment and to their organisational process, associated with a concept of alternative community. Both narratives mutually engender each other in a reciprocal circularity: chocolate and politics, a binary that represents a continuum, a symbiotic cultural con-text which moulds the daily experience of the individual life of each member of the Community.