A morality in the modes of intervention on the relationship between youth and violence in Colombia

• Main Author: Jaime Andrés Gómez-Navarro
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universidad del Valle 2015-10-01
• Series: Prospectiva
• Subjects: moral; violence; youth; policies; popular education; development
• Online Access: http://revistaprospectiva.univalle.edu.co/index.php/prospectiva/%20article%20/view%20/937

The object of analysis is the knowledge produced on the relationship between youth and violence in Colombia. This paper explores this field through an in–depth analysis of 110 articles and a reflection on popular education and the schools of development as two main modes of intervention within the analyzed articles. First, the paper explores how the concept of youth is created in the literature on violence in Colombia and the kind of relationship the authors create between young people and violence. Secondly and in a hypothetical manner, it argues that this knowledge reveals a morality that mystifies the reasons for violence and is convenient for violence itself. This morality uses a concept of humanitarianism that disguises the emptiness of events. It is the repetition of a complexity that clouds the thinking and represses and denies rage. This morality paves the way to a form of biopolitics that trains individuals by subordinating them to a promise about a system of opportunities. At the same time, there is a power in life that validates beliefs and experiences, subverting and exalting the multiple and diverging.