Una mirada etnográfica a la Ciudadela Santa Rosa: reflexiones sobre un caso de re-integración social de excombatientes en Bogotá

Abstract

The article provides an ethnographic approach to the social-reintegration experience of former combatants in Ciudadela Santa Rosa, Bogota. A few years after Ciudadela Santa Rosa was completed in 1998, many of the houses were either abandoned or auctioned off. Starting in 2005, families of former combatants from different armed groups bought these properties at very low cost and moved there after finishing their institutional reinsertion process. In the first part of the article, I broach the history of the neighborhood as told by two of its inhabitants. I then go on to describe my fieldwork methodology and conclude with a series of reflections triggered by how the residents build their social relationships. I frame these reflections from a critical perspective derived of the analysis of national and Bogota´s governments’ policies and programs geared to the social reintegration of former combatants between 2010 and 2012, prior to the negotiations with farc guerilla group.