Paper short abstract:

Internal displacement in Colombia is an ongoing phenomenon that has dramatically changes more than 3 million lifes. This article focuses, through interviews and life histories, on the pain of loss and the process of reconstruction of identities of the displaced families.

Paper long abstract:

There are around 3 million people who have been forcefully displaced from their homes as a direct or indirect consequence of the armed conflict in Colombia. Threats, human rights violations, forced recruitment and armed confrontations have pushed millions of people, into moving to major cities in search for opportunities or state help which often isn't received or isn't enough. In Bogotà, as the city that receives the most of both displaced and economic migrants, they don't encounter any type of basic service so they are forced to relocate illegally and manually construct temporary shelters that have become shanty towns on the outskirts of Bogotà.

In the ethnographic research that I have developed in these marginal neighbourhoods around Bogotá through interviews and life stories "real" time vanishes into an emotional succession of events, idealized lost paradises, unknown future paths and impossible dreams of return. The displaced people talk about an irreparable break in their cultural and socio-economical way of life.

Despite of the deep loss suffered by these people, their migration is changing the shape of major cities, the role and participation level of women in the urban life, the rural-urban relation all over the country,…and could determine in a non-distant future the possibility of a real change in Colombian society.