Raíces que Caminan

Abstract

Raíces que Caminan (Roots That Walk) is a research-creation project that addresses migration as a social, cultural, and human phenomenon that transforms both those who arrive in Bogotá and the city that receives them. Through a three-part documentary miniseries, this work highlights the cultural practices that three migrants reclaim in their process of settling in the capital: an Afro-Colombian family connected to Pacific Coast cuisine, a Misak woman who preserves ancestral knowledge through handcrafted personal care products, and a Venezuelan migrant who reconstructs his identity through barista work and gastronomy. The research employs a qualitative and phenomenological approach, supported by semi-structured interviews, active observation, and audiovisual recording. Its main purpose is to demonstrate how cultural practices do not disappear with migration, but rather transform, adapt, and become forms of resistance, memory, dignity, and belonging. Cooking, traditional medicine, daily work, and life stories emerge as languages ​​through which the protagonists narrate their wounds, their lessons learned, and their ways of remaining connected to their places of origin. The results show that migrating does not mean abandoning one's roots, but rather learning to carry them with oneself and cultivate them in new urban settings. In this sense, the documentary functions as a living archive of migrant memories and as a tool for raising awareness about communities that are often portrayed through the lens of deprivation, stigma, or exclusion. Thus, "Roots That Walk" proposes a more human perspective on migration, understood not only as displacement, but as a process of cultural, emotional, and symbolic reconstruction.