The Natures of War: Violent Jungle Typographies in Contemporary Colombian Narrative

Abstract

Spaces mapped as jungle have reemerged in contemporary Colombian culture as the site of a pilgrimage to which authors and audiences return in times of anxieties with nature and neoliberal globalization, the wars around the drug trade and diverse forms of violence. This article examines the ways in which contemporary topographies of violent jungles play a central role in conceptualizations of rural spaces and subjects, by focusing on the popular captivity narratives known as “testimonios del secuestro” that narrate the journeys to and from jungle of people who have been kidnapped by guerrilla groups. In light of these testimonies that reinscribe jungle as natural frontier of barbarism in need of mapping and surveillance, we examine how the film El vuelco del cangrejo (2009) situates it as a cultural space and traces the violence inherent in those projects that seek to transform it into a safe garden for capital and tourism.