To be Colombianos por Siempre: private and public spheres for the genesis and construction of a migrant collective in Temuco

Abstract

Work in migrant communities in Chile is wide and diverse. However, the role of migrant collectivities that seek to visibilize, represent, and influence public policies has hardly been explored. This article deals with the genesis and conformation of the Colombian migrant community Forever Colombians. We propose that this construction is developed from reterritorialization processes, marked by the private and public spheres, from which the members of the Colombian community transform their cultural deterritorialization , from the elaboration of sense of belonging that allows them to generate self-representations for themselves and for others. The creation of this migrant community emerges as a way of responding and marking presence in front of problems that affect them and in front of the representations that others
generate about them. The experience of Colombianos por Siempre as a social, cultural and political collective allows us to observe possibilities for the construction of citizenship in contexts of cultural diversity.