'Volviendo a Vivir' (coming back to life): Urban trauma, activism and building emancipatory futures

This paper engages recent writing on urban trauma, exploring its connection with the gendered forms of activism that displaced women practise as they seek to rebuild more emancipatory urban futures. Their activisms are situated in the context of multiple, ongoing and intersecting forms of violence from intimates, armed groups and the state, including institutional neglect (in and of the city) that is racialised and gendered. We draw on participatory action research undertaken with women in the Colombian cities of Bogota and Medellin. Using creative audio-visual methods over several months, women co-researchers produced a documentary in which they chart the ways that they claim spaces of the city inside and outside their homes. We draw particular attention here to the temporal dimension of urban trauma as it intersects with migrant women's spatial biographies; this has consequences for their activisms which also transcend the sites and scales of public and private spheres, national and global crises and individual and community responses. We argue that it is the gradually accruing and multiplying character of violence and trauma which in turn necessitates the gradual and multiscalar development of these activisms. The women used ecological metaphors of rooting and growth to explain how, through these activisms and directly informed by past traumatic events, they 'come back to life'. Together, they build solidarity networks and alliances, and imagine and practise alternative feminist urban futures and modes of recovery in their new urban homes.

Automated summary

This paper examines the connection between urban trauma and the gendered activism of displaced women as they strive to rebuild emancipatory urban futures. The research, conducted in Bogota and Medellin, Colombia, reveals that these women face multiple and intersecting forms of violence from intimate partners, armed groups, and the state, as well as institutional neglect. By using participatory action research and creative audio-visual methods, the women documented their efforts to reclaim urban spaces. The study highlights the temporal dimension of urban trauma and its intersection with the spatial biographies of migrant women, demonstrating the need for gradual and multiscalar development of activism.