La transmission « alternative » par le savoir-faire : les brodeuses de Mampuján

Abstract

This contribution presentsa group of Colombian women from Mampuján (interior of the Caribbean area) who, with the help of traditional knowledge, and of their specific skills, have been able to convey and overcome the collective trauma experienced by their village. In Colombia, the war that has been raging since the 1940s and is mainly affecting the rural population, has taken on new forms since the 1980s, such as the strategy of massacres, resulting in the displacement of seven million people to urban areas, making this conflict the largest humanitarian crisis Latin America has ever known. The history of Mampuján must be understood in this context. On the night of March 10-11 2000, the inhabitants of this hamlet south of Cartagena were threatened with massacre by a paramilitary group and had to abandon their village, to find themselves displaced a few kilometers away. From 2007 to 2009, a group of fifteen women has sewn a series of eleven tapestries of 170 x100 cm which tell the story of the unleashing of violence endured by these mostly Afro-descendant populations.