Progress and Displacement

In the most remote parts of the world where the bull­doz­ers con­tin­ue to push ahead in the name of so-called progress, those people who are affect­ed the most are the few remain­ing, intact farm­ing cul­tures and indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties. This the­mat­ic focus takes us to the high­est regions of Colom­bia and the Pampas of north­ern Brazil, where we encounter obvi­ous oppo­sites. While the indige­nous people in Colom­bia wear white hand-woven cloth­ing, this is a stark con­trast to the indus­tri­al, worn out denim clothes mass-pro­duced in a town in Brazil. Yet this tex­tile dif­fer­ence alone demon­strates the loss of cul­tur­al diver­si­ty. What is won by ‘progress’? What is lost? The Arhua­co in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the north of Colom­bia have been defend­ing their tra­di­tion­al way of life for cen­turies. Now, there are only a few of them left, yet they insist on main­tain­ing their cul­ture and their self-deter­mi­na­tion. THINKING LIKE A MOUNTAIN by Alexan­der Hick is a cin­e­mato­graph­ic mon­u­ment to these people. Ivan Boccara’s PASTORALES shows what already hap­pened in Europe more than one hun­dred years ago. In this … read more