Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MEMORYREIMAGINED (Memory Reimagined: Gender and Intersectionality in Participatory Memory Configuration)
Período documentado: 2023-04-01 hasta 2025-08-31
Memory Reimagined: Gender and Intersectionality in Participatory Memory Configuration investigates how feminist and decolonial methodologies can transform collective practices of remembrance and repair in contexts affected by prolonged violence and inequality.
The project focuses on collaborative initiatives of memory configuration developed in Bogotá, Colombia, where community members, artists, and cultural organisations engage in creative and participatory processes that respond to the everyday effects of intertwined violences —from armed violence to different forms of structural violences— and seek to reconfigure relations of care, recognition, and belonging.
Through long-term ethnographic research, the project examines how these initiatives articulate collective forms of resistance and recognition that challenge dominant narratives of violence and victimhood. It analyses how gender, class, and coloniality shape experiences of participation and how artistic and dialogical practices—such as walking, storytelling, and collective creation—contribute to transforming social imaginaries and affective relations in urban contexts marked by exclusion.
At the core of the project lies the development of methodological and ethical tools for feminist peace research. One of these is vulnerable listening, a framework that foregrounds affect, reciprocity, and care in research encounters. Building on previous work in the Basque context, the concept has been expanded through the Colombian fieldwork to address the complexities of collaboration in participatory memory processes.
The project also introduced the practice of Derivas—walking-based, situated forms of inquiry inspired by feminist and decolonial thought—which served to explore how memory is produced through embodied, affective, and spatial relations. These methodological innovations advance interdisciplinary dialogue between anthropology, peace and conflict studies, and memory studies.
Overall, Memory Reimagined aims to generate both theoretical and practical contributions:
-to demonstrate how participatory memory initiatives can foster relational repair, dialogue, and recognition;
-to provide methodological insights and transferable tools for institutions and organisations working on peacebuilding, cultural production, and memory curation; and
-to inform policy and public debates on how participatory approaches to memory can help reduce gendered and structural forms of violence.
By integrating social sciences and humanities within an applied ethnographic framework, the project contributes to building more reflexive and equitable understandings of memory, justice, and coexistence—linking academic research with community-based transformation.
The project focuses on collaborative initiatives of memory configuration developed in Bogotá, Colombia, where community members, artists, and cultural organisations engage in creative and participatory processes that respond to the everyday effects of intertwined violences —from armed violence to different forms of structural violences— and seek to reconfigure relations of care, recognition, and belonging.
Through long-term ethnographic research, the project examines how these initiatives articulate collective forms of resistance and recognition that challenge dominant narratives of violence and victimhood. It analyses how gender, class, and coloniality shape experiences of participation and how artistic and dialogical practices—such as walking, storytelling, and collective creation—contribute to transforming social imaginaries and affective relations in urban contexts marked by exclusion.
At the core of the project lies the development of methodological and ethical tools for feminist peace research. One of these is vulnerable listening, a framework that foregrounds affect, reciprocity, and care in research encounters. Building on previous work in the Basque context, the concept has been expanded through the Colombian fieldwork to address the complexities of collaboration in participatory memory processes.
The project also introduced the practice of Derivas—walking-based, situated forms of inquiry inspired by feminist and decolonial thought—which served to explore how memory is produced through embodied, affective, and spatial relations. These methodological innovations advance interdisciplinary dialogue between anthropology, peace and conflict studies, and memory studies.
Overall, Memory Reimagined aims to generate both theoretical and practical contributions:
-to demonstrate how participatory memory initiatives can foster relational repair, dialogue, and recognition;
-to provide methodological insights and transferable tools for institutions and organisations working on peacebuilding, cultural production, and memory curation; and
-to inform policy and public debates on how participatory approaches to memory can help reduce gendered and structural forms of violence.
By integrating social sciences and humanities within an applied ethnographic framework, the project contributes to building more reflexive and equitable understandings of memory, justice, and coexistence—linking academic research with community-based transformation.
Between 2023 and 2025, Memory Reimagined conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Bogotá. The research documented and analysed participatory initiatives of remembrance and repair that emerged in response to intertwined forms of violence and exclusion.
Through collaborative workshops, walking-based inquiries, and long-term participant observation, the project generated a rich ethnographic corpus that combines textual, visual, and spatial materials. This body of work offers a grounded understanding of how artistic and dialogical practices can contribute to processes of recognition, coexistence, and social transformation in post-conflict urban settings.
Analytical work during the outgoing phase led to the refinement of a feminist and decolonial methodology for participatory research, consolidating the framework of vulnerable listening as a transferable tool for peace and memory studies. The research has produced new theoretical insights into the affective and relational dimensions of collective memory and repair, linking grassroots initiatives with broader debates in feminist anthropology and peacebuilding.
The fellowship also strengthened international academic cooperation between the University of Granada (Spain) and Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), enabling sustained knowledge exchange and interdisciplinary collaboration. All scientific and training objectives have been achieved or are in advanced completion, including the preparation of a monograph under contract and two journal articles in progress.
Through collaborative workshops, walking-based inquiries, and long-term participant observation, the project generated a rich ethnographic corpus that combines textual, visual, and spatial materials. This body of work offers a grounded understanding of how artistic and dialogical practices can contribute to processes of recognition, coexistence, and social transformation in post-conflict urban settings.
Analytical work during the outgoing phase led to the refinement of a feminist and decolonial methodology for participatory research, consolidating the framework of vulnerable listening as a transferable tool for peace and memory studies. The research has produced new theoretical insights into the affective and relational dimensions of collective memory and repair, linking grassroots initiatives with broader debates in feminist anthropology and peacebuilding.
The fellowship also strengthened international academic cooperation between the University of Granada (Spain) and Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), enabling sustained knowledge exchange and interdisciplinary collaboration. All scientific and training objectives have been achieved or are in advanced completion, including the preparation of a monograph under contract and two journal articles in progress.
Memory Reimagined makes a distinctive contribution to feminist, decolonial, and anthropological research by developing an original model of collaborative and affective ethnography in contexts marked by violence and social inequality. Through long-term fieldwork in Bogotá, the project advanced a methodology of co-research in which community members, artists, and researchers collectively shaped the inquiry, combining walking-based exploration, collective mapping, and dialogical reflection. The project demonstrates that research can become a space of shared vulnerability and transformation, where the negotiation of difference produces knowledge in itself.
Within this collaborative framework, the notion of vulnerable listening was further expanded and re-examined. It emerged as a collective practice that sustains co-research in conditions of uncertainty, exposure, and care. This evolution marks a key epistemological contribution: it reframes listening not only as a disposition but as a method for producing relational and situated understanding.
The project also refined the use of Derivas—walking-based and situated inquiries inspired by feminist and decolonial approaches—as participatory tools for exploring the affective and spatial dimensions of memory. These walks offered a means of tracing how urban landscapes, displacement, and collective repair are experienced through movement and encounter.
The main scientific and methodological results include:
-A grounded model of collaborative ethnography that integrates affect, reflexivity, and material relations as analytical dimensions;
-Expansion of vulnerable listening into a collective, methodological practice embedded in co-research;
-Advancement of Derivas as participatory tools for the study of memory and urban transformation;
-Empirical evidence of how participatory memory practices can generate recognition and repair beyond institutional frameworks.
Overall, Memory Reimagined moves the field beyond the state of the art by showing how participatory research can operate as an embodied, ethical, and transformative process. It offers new methodological and theoretical tools for scholars and practitioners working at the intersections of anthropology, peacebuilding, and feminist epistemology.
Within this collaborative framework, the notion of vulnerable listening was further expanded and re-examined. It emerged as a collective practice that sustains co-research in conditions of uncertainty, exposure, and care. This evolution marks a key epistemological contribution: it reframes listening not only as a disposition but as a method for producing relational and situated understanding.
The project also refined the use of Derivas—walking-based and situated inquiries inspired by feminist and decolonial approaches—as participatory tools for exploring the affective and spatial dimensions of memory. These walks offered a means of tracing how urban landscapes, displacement, and collective repair are experienced through movement and encounter.
The main scientific and methodological results include:
-A grounded model of collaborative ethnography that integrates affect, reflexivity, and material relations as analytical dimensions;
-Expansion of vulnerable listening into a collective, methodological practice embedded in co-research;
-Advancement of Derivas as participatory tools for the study of memory and urban transformation;
-Empirical evidence of how participatory memory practices can generate recognition and repair beyond institutional frameworks.
Overall, Memory Reimagined moves the field beyond the state of the art by showing how participatory research can operate as an embodied, ethical, and transformative process. It offers new methodological and theoretical tools for scholars and practitioners working at the intersections of anthropology, peacebuilding, and feminist epistemology.