The Sites of Memory

Sites of memory are places with high symbolic value for specific communities because of the meanings they summon and help to reproduce. In Colombia, a site of memory usually triggers images of violence tied to what different political and social actors call the Colombian civil war, the Colombian inner armed conflict, or the Colombian war against terror. Therefore, the Colombian sites of memory are highly relevant elements to understand the Colombian politics of memory.

The Colombian sites of memory constitute what some analysts are starting to call "infrastructures of memory." As infrastructures, they facilitate or impede the circulation of past experiences and specific frameworks of meaning. In other words, the symbolically interconnected places the map is pointing are reinforcing particular interpretations of the past while rejecting others. This map brings together data from two different sources with a very distinct understanding of the Colombian violence, its causes, and its legacies. Those sources are the Colombian Network of Sites of Memory (La Red Colombiana de Lugares de la Memoria) and the National Police's Window of Memory (La Ventana de la Memoria de la Policía Nacional).