Peaceful Women: Digital Narratives and Daily Survival in Chocó

Abstract

Approaching violence as an object of study can reproduce and naturalize horror and, consequently, revictimize those who have survived it. This article explores the process of narrating and researching survival as examples of performative everyday practices, alternative to the fetishization of violence in Chocó, Colombia. It focuses on Mujeres Pacíficas, a digital storytelling project created in collaboration with the members of the Gender Commission of a farmworker’s organization, COCOMACIA (Consejo Comunitario Mayor de la Asociación Campesina Integral del Atrato, the Main Community Council of the Integral Peasant Association of the Atrato River).1 In the process of thinking about survival as an everyday embodied knowledge, Mujeres Pacíficas exemplifies how personal memories can be rehearsals of alternative archives. Using performance as a framework to understand these narratives allows us to move from a traumatic memory, to an ethical rehearsal that recognizes the potential of storytelling and embodiment.