Supernatural Bulletproof Men : an Ethnography of Sorcery and Paramilitary Power in Colombian Eastern Plains
This thesis is an ethnographic exploration of cruzados - men who turned to sorcery to become bulletproof. Such practice was popular among paramilitary groups during their expansion in the Colombian Eastern Plains throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Based on 13 months of fieldwork in a former paramilitar...
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| Format: | Dissertation |
| Language: | English |
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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
01-01-2022
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | This thesis is an ethnographic exploration of cruzados - men who turned to sorcery to become bulletproof. Such practice was popular among paramilitary groups during their expansion in the Colombian Eastern Plains throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Based on 13 months of fieldwork in a former paramilitary stronghold, this study asks what cruzados reveal about paramilitary power. It does so by analysing the ritual to become cruzados - a process through which bulletproof powers are created by producing "unhuman" bodies. I explore how the "unhuman" become at the same time "de-humanised" and "inhumane" through paramilitary war. Cruzados engender mystical and physical terror, producing paramilitary power as something residing in the combatants' bodies. The thesis shows that sorcery is not merely a tool consciously deployed by paramilitaries to legitimate their authority but is constitutive of their de facto power as armed organisations. Ultimately, cruzados expose the "inhumane" essence of these unstable organisations that multiply by turning human bodies into weapons of war. |
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