El territorio lo hicimos nosotros. Colonización, organización campesina y autogestión de la memoria en el Alto Ariari.

Abstract

This research examines how peasant colonization processes in the municipalities of El Castillo and Medellín del Ariari (Meta, Colombia) shaped the territory, fostered forms of social organization, and enabled the self-management of memory as a practice of resistance against armed violence and sociopolitical transformations in recent decades. Drawing on a situated, critical, and comprehensive epistemology, the study reconstructs the experiences of settlers and their descendants through testimonies, narrative exercises, and collective memory practices, which shed light on how rural communities reinterpret their history and strengthen their territorial and political identity. The dissertation argues that memory—understood as the shared experience of the past and as a contested field—functions as a mechanism of social cohesion and as an organizational resource that articulates identity and territory. In this way, the study demonstrates how peasants of the Alto Ariari have made the territory theirs, transforming pain and resistance into collective life projects.