Category Archives: Insurgency/Counterinsurgency

Grassroots Masquerades: Development, Paramilitaries, and Land Laundering in Colombia

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

My article “Grassroots Masquerades: Development, Paramilitaries, and Land Laundering” was just published by Geoforum. The article will be out in hardcopy in Volume 50 (December 2013), but it’s already available online. The first version of the article was presented at the … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Development, Drugs, Forests, Frontiers, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Law, Michel Foucault, Peace, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Primitive Accumulation, The State | Comments Off

Interview: Mass Protests Rock Colombia

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

As mass protests in Colombia entered into their tenth day yesterday, I was interviewed by KPFA about the mobilizations that continue spreading throughout the country. Negotiations between the government and protest leaders continue. What began as a strike by peasants … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Development, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Media, Peace, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Primitive Accumulation, Violence | 4 Comments

Colombia’s Peace Talks: Independent Republics or Peasant Territories?

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

After five months, the Colombian government peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Havana are still on the first—and most complicated—item of their five-point negotiating agenda: the restructuring of rural development. Things are moving slowly but … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Development, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Law, Peace, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Security, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State | 4 Comments

Medellín: Who’s Afraid of Hip-Hop?

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

My article on hip-hop and violence in Medellín is now out: Héctor Pacheco walked down the steep hillsides of his barrio in Medellín, Colombia to wish his aunt a happy birthday. Pacheco—a local rapper nicknamed “Kolacho”—had spoken at a public … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Boundaries, City, Drugs, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Security, Spatiality, Territory, Terror, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Visualizing Space and Injustice in Palestine

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

In an old post about the potential political capacities of the infographic, I wrote: “If Guy Debord was right in highlighting that social relations between people are increasingly mediated by images and representations, then can the infographic be a popular … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Boundaries, City, Critique, Everyday Life, Guy Debord, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Maps, Media, Primitive Accumulation, Scale, Security, Spatiality, Spectacle, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Zapatistas and Territory

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

After their silent and momentary seizure of five municipal plazas on December 21, the Zapatistas issued a new communiqué (in Spanish or English). In sum, it describes how they will continue consolidating their “other way of doing politics.” Among their … Continue reading →

Posted in Henri Lefebvre, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Marxism, Media, Networks, Race & Ethnicity, Spatiality, Territory, The State | 1 Comment

Meanwhile… Actual Living Mayans: Zapatistas Retake the Plazas

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

After months (years?) of people talking about Mayans in the past tense, as a bygone civilization that predicted the end of the world, tens of thousands of Zapatistas quietly filed out of the mountains in southern Mexico and flooded into … Continue reading →

Posted in #Occupy, Bandits, City, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Spatiality, Territory, The State | 1 Comment

The New Aesthetic Part II: Writing Like A Drone

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

My first post on the “New Aesthetic”—that weird, sometimes unsettling irruption of digital phenomena into real life, particularly into our visual culture—described it as a “structure of feeling,” a term coined by cultural critic Raymond Williams. For him, a structure … Continue reading →

Posted in #Occupy, Art, City, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Raymond Williams, Security | 2 Comments

Can Colombia’s Peace Talks Succeed?

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Colombia’s fourth and hopefully definitive try at peace talks with the country’s largest rebel group begin today in Oslo, Norway. The previous three tries between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—once in the 1980s and twice … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Development, Drugs, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Peace, Security, Terror, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Video Abstract: Territories of Life and Death

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/9ChdRWJkF4o”] A more in depth written description of my project is forthcoming in the pages of Antipode. Thanks to the entire Antipode crew for the award and to others for their kind words.

Posted in Frontiers, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Peace, Political Ecology, Race & Ethnicity, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off