A "Library for Peace" in Caquetá, Colombia

This reflection draws from an interview in June 2021 with anthropologist Pablo Iván Galvis Díaz, who has led a project co-sponsored by the Colombian Ministry of Culture and National Library, “Libraries for Peace,” established in the wake of Colombia’s 2016 Peace Agreement with the insurgent group FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).

Nestled in the Amazonian region of Caquetá, Colombia, San Vicente del Caguán is a municipality with a riddled history in the general narrative of Colombia’s armed conflict, with both paramilitary groups and guerilla groups vying for control of the area even after the country’s landmark peace agreement in 2016. It is precisely in this context that anthropologist and librarian Pablo Iván Galvis Díaz has cultivated efforts to build a “library for peace”—a community center that is both a physical building and a series of relationships among diverse community members who participate in storytelling workshops that narrate local perspectives of the armed conflict. This initiative initially had sponsorship through the Colombian Ministry of Culture and the National Library. Yet, even as this institutional support has withered over time, Galvis’ commitment remains vibrant along with the enthusiasm and support of the local community. Below I share some reflections from Galvis on the importance of this library project, following our interview together in June 2021.

The library as a generative space. Galvis emphasizes that the primary goal of San Vicente del Caguán’s library is relational rather than just pedagogical. The group of volunteers that run programming focuses on hosting workshops for creative writing to elicit personal narratives from community members—many of them ex-combatants from the FARC and other factions. Galvis said the power of this storytelling is that it enables individuals to “say what cannot be said” in the context of war. The library’s workshops provide a safe and neutral space for community members to craft their biographical narratives, some of which Galvis has condensed into an anthology made available to the broader Colombian public through publication in a university press based in Bogotá, the country's capital. The library’s programming also aims at larger projects of restoring community relations that have been severed by decades of armed conflict. Through their “senderos de la paz” (“paths of peace”) initiative, the library promotes oral storytelling among diverse and sometimes opposing community members. These stories are shared while walking communally through known “red zones” or specific territories that are typically off-limits due to risk of active landmines.

The library as a space of resistance. In his own words, Galvis describes his library as a “place of life, memory, and resistance.” He illustrated a recent example of how this resistance can manifest in the context of heightened destabilization in the region. When a curfew was imposed on community members by an emerging armed group in mid-2021, local leaders of the library maintained their plans to host a storytelling gathering that planned to extend two hours past the designated curfew of 6 p.m. Galvis conveyed this account to me with admiration in his voice, as he said the library gathering ultimately lasted much later, until 10 p.m. that evening. He views this event as a symbol of what the library has meant for so many community members in San Vicente del Caguán, as an institutional outlier of stability and resistance in light of complex and deteriorating conflict dynamics. The library is a means for the community to push back against a return to violence.

The library as a symbol of “pending” peace. Finally, Galvis relayed to me that their library remains one of the few reminders of a more optimistic era just five years ago when the signing of the peace agreement brought state attention and resources to San Vicente del Caguán. The library is one of the few remaining “artifacts” of this time period, as many of the promises of the peace agreement have lost momentum with a new presidential administration. Galvis explained that this is why community members were eager to pool their own resources to purchase a small piece of land for a physical library building once government funds depleted, because they were motivated to retain the initiative as a “symbol of peace.” As for Galvis himself and his group of volunteers, they continue to take steps to convert this symbol into a more stable reality. Their work in the community has resumed in the recent months after a hiatus due to COVID-19.

Kristin Foringer is a U.S. Institute of Peace Scholar and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow with interests in comparative-historical methods and political and cultural sociology. Her research focuses on transitional justice policy in Colombia, especially related to ideas about victimhood, collective memory, and symbolic reparations.