The invisible margins of the Magdalena River in Barranquilla, Colombia
As part of October’s RCN Presentation Series, the Magdalena River team will present preliminary findings of a collaborative project with fishing communities in the metropolitan area of Barranquilla, Colombia, a river city in the lower Magdalena River where multiple forms of injustice and inequality converge.
The presentation will take place on Tuesday 20 October at 16:00 CEST on Teams. Click here to join the Teams event.
The Talk
In the city of Barranquilla, Colombia, in the lower Magdalena River, the government has invested large amounts of financial resources to expand urban green spaces and attract more tourists. This project stands in sharp contrast with a history of uneven urban and industrial development that has evolved at the expense of wetlands and fishing livelihoods. What does it mean to be a fisher in an urban space where fish and water are rapidly disappearing? What is the place of fishers and wetlands in the broader conception of a green river city? Fishing livelihoods and highly polluted wetlands have been rendered invisible in the official representation of the green city, as fishers are usually not seen as part of the urban life.
The Speaker(s)
Alejandro Camargo is an assistant professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia.
The River Cities Network presentation series
The River Cities Network presentation series is an online platform for teams in the River Cities Network (RCN) to introduce their river-city case study projects to other members of the network and to an external audience. Teams have approximately 30 minutes to present their projects, after which there will be approximately 30 minutes for discussion. RCN teams that are interested in presenting can contact rcn@iias.nl.
Header image credit: Alejandro Camargo