The dialectics of hope and critique: Reflections on Colombia's new government

Abstract

A year ago, many would have considered the idea of Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez becoming the President and the Vice President of Colombia a delirium in a country with 200 years of right-wing political domination. In this contention piece, we reflect on critical points of their government's agenda, some of its challenges, and their strategies to face them. To do that, we draw from the election's extensive press coverage and our own experience as scholar-activists in Colombia and the United States. We also combine our interdisciplinary analytical lenses (Sociology, Philosophy, Feminist Political Ecology, and Critical Race Feminism) to shed light on the complexity of this current political conjecture, the interplay between hope and despair, and the general affective politics that traverses our understanding.