Geographies of Terror and Fear: Black Communities in Colombia and Displacement

This research project sought to address the 'invisibilisation' of many 'terror' contexts through a geographical perspective. In particular it sought to develop an original conceptual framework through which to view and examine the impact of terror 'on the ground' and the multiple ways in which its manifestations affect human beings in a variety of settings. The study was empirically sited in Colombia, where it sought to explain the ways in which the country's black communities in the Pacific coast region are displaced from their lands by the various armed actors of Colombia's internal conflict. Evidence for this ethnographic study was collected with internally displaced persons (IDPs) and black leaders in the Colombian capital of Bogota and the small town of Guapi on the Pacific coast. Qualitative data was gathered from in-depth interviews and focus group sessions, which were recorded, transcribed and analysed, and also numerous informal conversations and observation in the field (the interview transcripts are included in the data collection, but the informal notes and observation data are not)