Memory. From the versions of the city to the possible city in the 21st century

Abstract

This article analyzes two versions of memory constructed upon forced displacement due to the armed conflict in Colombia: the official versions and the reserved versions of the victims. It is based on doctoral research results carried out from 2012 to 2016, with people displaced by the armed conflict at the end of the last century, who came to inhabit urban settlements in the periphery of the city of Medellín. These people now define themselves as new nomads and chameleonic subjects, weavers of interrupted coexistence forms, ephemeral but intense, with random encounters or in moments of necessary connection for their survival. The memory of these strange ways of being and traveling through the city is the basis for suggesting memory policies that contribute to repair damage, to question modern planning of the established city and to propose cities which include the ways of living recreated by the displaced. These spaces should coincide with the spatio-temporal changes of the 21st century, the century of the decline of certainties.