State and spatial production in a transition to post-conflict extractive economies: The case of Quibdo, Colombia

This paper examines the spatial production of injustice in Quibdó – the main commercial centre of El Chocó, Colombia, and the principal fluvial port of the Atrato River.  The paper seeks to understand the processes... [ view full abstract ]

This paper examines the spatial production of injustice in Quibdó – the main commercial centre of El Chocó, Colombia, and the principal fluvial port of the Atrato River.  The paper seeks to understand the processes shaping the contemporary development and rapid transformation of land use in Quibdo, and how these processes deepen and extend inequality and injustice in the city.  Quibdo is something of a frontier town – the capital of Colombia’s ‘Wild West’ it lies in one of the regions worst affected by the Colombia civil war and is in the heart of Colombia’s extractive industries – both legal and illegal. The paper is organized around 3 stories.  The first is a story of a disappearing building that highlights how attempts of democratic, equitable and participatory planning in Quibdó become distorted by national government neoliberal economic policies, weak state actors, poor governance, corruption and disrespect for the rule of law.  The second story serves to highlight the significance of foreign capital from extractive industries is driving uneven urban development. Focusing on the expansion of the city’s airport and the airport service centre, the paper shows how spectacular investments at the periphery of the city are displacing already marginal populations. The third story focuses how theories of accumulation through dispossession can help explain the contours of injustice in Quibdo. It focuses on the displacement and dispossession produced by forced migration from rural areas due to armed conflict and the legacies of the civil war, as well as the displacement produced by gentrification in the city center as capital from illegal extractive industries is laundered through an inflated property market.