Colombia’s Cultural Explosion: Vivir Sabroso and Ollas Comunitarias as Pedagogies of Solidarity

Abstract

This article analyzes the cultural explosion of “28A,” the largest national strike in Colombia’s recent times. It aims to further understand the protest from the point of view of young artists that went out to protest. Following analytical tools borrowed from the performance studies, I bring a decolonial approach to the performance studies debate, analyzing social protests as “epistemological struggles” in relation to alternative pedagogies of resistance and solidarity. I join the decolonial commitment of this special issue by thinking from and with Indigenous, Black, Mestizxs, and Youth discourses and praxes, while opening Indigeneity, Blackness, and decoloniality to other spaces like the performing arts, circus, and the mestizo nation. I draw attention to Afro and Indigenous philosophies and practices that influence circus practice in Colombia. As those praxes transcend specific Afro and Indigenous communities, the cultural explosion not only challenges the idea of the mestizo nation but also reveals the prevalence of inter-epistemic dialogues and pedagogies of solidarity among young artists in Colombia. In the aftermath of 28A and its cultural explosion, those dialogues have been joined by other sectors of society as revealed in the current presidential elections, where Afro and Indigenous philosophies are finally being considered as valid alternative forms of governance within the mestizo nation.

Notes

1 Eighty-nine percent of the 12,478 protest events registered between April 28 and June 4, 2021 happened without any recorded violence (Medina, 2021b).