The Creating Safer Space network has published a new working paper, ‘Interseccionalidad, vulneraciones y autoprotección en el contexto del conflicto armado urbano en Medellín, 2022-2024’. The Working Paper is written by Beatriz Elena Arias López, Laura Jiménez Ospina, Sandra Benítez Diosa, Adriana María Diosa Colorado and Giovanny Pérez.
The working paper is currently only available in Spanish, but an English translation will be available soon.
The working paper presents the findings of the Creating Safer Space project, Art that Protects: Networks as strategies for self-protection in the context of urban conflict in the city of Medellín, 2023. It explores the role of art as a powerful form of self-protection in the context of social and armed conflict in Medellín, Colombia. Using an intersectional lens, it analyses the initiatives of fifteen community-based artistic and cultural organizations that have worked in the context of this urban conflict. By unpacking the categories of sex-gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, age, and cosmovision in the art that protects, the authors contribute to a deeper understanding, among others, of the role of marginalized people in their communities’ safety; the socioeconomic precarity of community-based artistic organisations; the role of art in creating spaces for reflection of hidden, naturalised violences such as structural racism; and the importance of youth initiatives.
We welcome proposals for the Creating Safer Space Working Paper Series. Please contact creating-safer-space@aber.ac.uk if you are interested in publishing a working paper with us.