And the right to the city? Approaches to racism, patriarchal domination and feminist strategies of resistance in Cali, Colombia

Abstract

This article seeks to give visibility to some spatial strategies of resistance developed by black women in the predominantly black district of Aguablanca District (DA), in eastern Cali, Colombia, against the systematic violence they are daily subjected to. We contextualize their practices within the systematic violence of displacement, paramilitaries terror and spatial segregation in the city. It also seeks to discuss how black women resist stigma, political marginalization and death in a city divided along racial and gender lines. The questions that guide this article are: What is the role of racism and patriarchal domination in the production of "geographies of violence" in Cali? What are the strategies of resistance developed by black women in these topographies of violence? Ultimately, the article seeks to fulfill a gap in academic discourses that silence on black women’s social suffering and that regard them as disorganized, a-political and passive victims.