Abandoning the Revolution or Weaving Peace? South-South Migration, Socialism, and Decolonial Feminist Geopolitics in South America

ABSTRACT

This article presents a decolonial feminist geopolitics of Venezuelan migration to Colombia, with Venezuelans fleeing the socialist Bolivarian Revolution and then facing discrimination and violence upon settling in capitalist Colombia amid its failing peace process context. Conflicts over migration and nationality permeate our global order of sovereign nation-states, both in north-south migrations and across the global south, while the feminisation and racialisation of migrants divides the subaltern class and facilitates capitalist exploitation. However, this paper elucidates migrants’ inter-national solidarities and grassroots peace struggles. Community organisers along the Colombia-Venezuela border – the women’s empowerment organisation Tejedores de Paz and youth leadership foundation Horizonte de Juventud – unite impoverished internally-displaced Colombians and Venezuelan immigrants to create resistance territories against xenophobia, patriarchy, and poverty. Illustrating the utility of the methodology of decolonial feminist geopolitics, I trace the reconfiguration of the spirit of sociopolitical revolution in South America through migrants’ emergent form of feminist non-state socialism.

Acknowledgements

My utmost gratitude to Banu Gökarıksel for coordinating this special issue and to our Feminist Geographies of Refugees working group for workshopping these papers, especially suggestions for my paper from Banu, Caroline Faria, Shae Frydenlund, Jenna Loyd, Devran Koray Öcal, Adam Saltsman, Anna Secor, and Nathan Swanson. I also appreciate feedback on prior versions of this article from Yousuf Al-Bulushi, Brian Wampler, Jen Schneider, Lisa Meierotto, Jaclyn Ketler, Lane Gillespie, and Nisha Bellinger. My gratitude to Hugo Beltrán for your bibliographic research that contributed to the article. A special thank you to Jony Cifuentes, Marcela Guedez, Diana Vargas, and other members of Horizonte de Juventud and Tejedores de Paz for your wisdom and allowing me to accompany your organizational processes. Any errors remain my own.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This project was conducted in accordance with research ethics and approvals from the Universidad del Rosario’s Comité de Ética and Boise State University’s Institutional Review Board. Participants provided informed consent to participate. ‘Mariela’ and ‘Yadira’ are pseudonyms to protect confidentiality, while Diana Vargas, Jony Cifuentes, and Marcela Guedez preferred to be identified by name.

Additional information

Funding

This work was generously supported by start-up funds from the Universidad del Rosario and Boise State University’s School of Public Service.