Persistences and Transformations of Violence in Pereira, Colombia: Possible Readings of Endemic Urban Violence

Abstract

Introduction

The Colombian State, colored by endemic violence, experiences the complex transitional scenario, a process that requires the realization of renewed readings to interpret the homicidal violence in Colombian intermediate cities.

Objective

The article seeks to interpret, based on the relational sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, the logic and mutations of historical and structural violence in a region that denies the armed conflict such as the region of the Colombian coffee axis, with emphasis on the capital city of Risaralda: Pereira.

Methodology

A qualitative methodological approach was used, with ethnographic and documentary designs based on research carried out in the Colombian coffee region, with emphasis on a critical period alluding to homicidal violence such as the period between 2023 and 2026 in the city of Pereira.

Results

The existence of a subfield of illegal economies is highlighted as one of the axes that articulate the endemic violence experienced in the territory. Likewise, the historical logic that underlies homicidal violence is exalted, as well as the factors that have led to its permanence and escalation in the post-agreement scenario.

Conclusions

Based on the analyzes constructed, an interpretation model is proposed based on the concept of violent social practice as an axis of analysis for the understanding of institutionalized violence in the territory, constitutive of hegemonic forms of territorial power, criminal logic and regional development, in which the role of the gray agent is central to interpret such violence.