Mapping Violence in Colombian Non-fiction
Victims of the Colombian conflict were often caught in a cycle of immense violence. The most effected were women and children, the marginalized. The events often occurred at random, and without warning. Once violence began, many had little choice but to flee. The narratives in Throwing Stones..., are the voice of these victims.
Since forced displacement in Colombia was caused by extreme violent acts against families and individuals, the visualization below attempts to give insight to the events that plague these victims years afterward. Each narrative in the collection, 20 in total, was surveyed in order to make sense of the individuals that were effected, the perpetrators, and the location in which therein violent act occurred. The location of the main traumatic event was chosen, despite the multitude of "micro" violent events occurring prior, as the major event was the primary reason for their displacement. This visualization provides for a concise qualitative approach to historical data collection, allowing one to view a selection of the conflict.
By: Priscilla Otero and Megan Kallestad
The Dispossessed, by Alfredo Molano, follows the testimonies of real displaced peoples in Colombia. Therefore, the chronicles include many locations to which the narrators or their loved ones travelled to at some point, either looking for work, escaping violence, or a myriad of other reasons. In order to make sense of the level of displacement felt by the 7 testimonies in this book, I mapped every location in which these characters lived or went and recorded whether or not there was a violent action that occurred there. I separated the icons by chapter into different colors, so that it is possible to follow one specific narrative’s journey away from violence. I also separated the types of pins based on whether or not a violent action took place at that location in order to demonstrate the type of widespread conflict that was occurring in Colombia. Some of the locations mentioned were not ones that appeared in Google Maps, and as a result I followed the other clues or descriptions given by the testimony to place an educated pin in the general location. On each pin, I described who from the narrative was in that location and why they were there, as well as what type of violent action occurred there (if applicable). By looking at this map, it is possible to see the level of displacement felt by many families in these testimonies, and the number of violent conflicts that affected Colombian citizens. It is also possible to see that the violence was not contained to a certain region, but rather occurred throughout Colombia during this time.
