The disenchantments and re-enchantments of remembrance

This article discusses overlaps between issues of sustainability and memory through the twin lenses of ‘disenchantment’ and ‘re-enchantment’ as fundamental elements of the mourning and memorial process. It takes as a case study events in the town of Trujillo, in the Cauca Valley, south-western Colombia in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Building on new materialist thinking, notably the work of Bennet and Tsing, and combining this with ethnographic reflections from a site visit, the article proposes that memorial practices in this case study demonstrate an oscillation between the disenchantment of historical events and a search for re-enchantment through commemorative rituals and the arts of memory. In this view, drawing on Casid’s work, the seeds of resistance come from within landscapes of suffering. Trujillo is infamous for a decade of killings and disappearances linked to narcotrafficking, repression, and paramilitary activities. Bodies were often discarded in the Cauca River, a key natural feature for sustainability in the region. Relatives of victims in Trujillo later constructed a memory garden and cemetery, which is managed through the grassroots organization, Asociación de Familiares de Víctimas de Trujillo (AFAVIT). The article seeks to demonstrate a possible approach to eco-memory studies which is sensitive to the entanglements of cultural memory and nature, and which proposes that a methodology attentive to the configurations of particular local conflicts may carry wider disciplinary implications.