El mito de la ausencia del Estado: la incorporación económica de las “zonas de frontera” en Colombia

Frontiers and marginal territories have historically been incorporated into the nation and of the modern world economy through extractive and enclave economies. These economies have as their main condition of possibility, a myth: that of the “absence of the state”. Exclusion, poverty and violence in these areas are explained in Colombia through the argument of their abandonment by the state, assuming if it had been present through its institutions and its investment and development programmes, the situation would bedifferent; there would be peace and prosperity. The aim of this paper is to demystify the notion of the “absence of the state” by showing how the State has actually had a continuous presence that may be traced through the actions and omissions of the specific social groups that have historically incarnated its institutions. The social categories, policies, territories and, in short, the forms of social order that these groups have privileged to incorporate these regions to global markets have transformed them into spaces of exception constituting thus, contrary to what is perceived in common sense, a continuous presence of the State