Acceso usuarios
Christian Vasquez
A book exchange near a burned-out police station marked the beginning of the Maloca Comunitaria Nicolás Guerrero (MCNG), one of Cali's grassroots libraries that emerged during Colombia's 2021 national strike. By creating a space for reading and writing amid ongoing street clashes, neighbors reclaimed public space to resist state repression and honor its victims. This article explores how initiatives like MCNG redefined protest by countering official narratives that criminalize dissent. Drawing on interviews with MCNG members and participant observation, and in resonance with José Medina's Epistemology of Protest and his concept of epistemic activism, I argue that these initiatives challenge the repression and delegitimization of protest by shifting its meaning from a communicative act to a process of (re)constituting collective identities. The article first situates Colombia's social uprising, emphasizing Cali's pivotal role and the symbolic use of public space, before detailing MCNG's constitution and guiding principles in resignifying urban space. I then analyze how MCNG's aesthetic interventions constructed alternative protest narratives through collective practices of reading and writing, forming a community in resistance that reclaims silenced struggles and builds collective memory. These actions foster new "grammars of listening," as conceptualized by María del Rosario Acosta, contributing to a broader redefinition of protest in Colombia.
