The Struggle For Community Reconstruction: Terrtorial Healing In Postwar Neighborhoods In Colombia

In Colombia, armed conflicts between the government and the guerilla group FARC ravaged the country for over fifty years, coming to an end with the peace accords of 2016. This prolonged warfare resulted in the displacement of millions of families, forcing them into tenuous living conditions within urban peripheries. In 2012, the government implemented a social housing program for displacees, delivering 100,000 housing units for free in 450 neighborhoods throughout the country. This dissertation uses relational space theory and qualitative methods to comparatively study the residents' experience in two of those neighborhoods. The dissertation shed light on the impact of the housing program on improving residents' housing security, fostering community formation, and enhancing civic engagement from 2014 to 2022. It highlights the relationship between the spaces hosting postwar communities and these communities of displaced people building individual and collective healing and recovering from the traumas of war and displacement.