The Geopolitics of Dispossession and Multidimensional Violence: A Critical Analysis of Developmental Asymmetries in Colombia

Abstract

This article critically analyzes how geopolitical transformations and the global economic system shape socio-environmental conflicts, structural inequalities, and psychosocial impacts in Colombia. Using a qualitative methodology involving a critical review of more than thirty indexed publications and institutional reports, this study examines the interaction between extractivism, the geopolitics of dispossession, and multidimensional violence. Within the theoretical framework of the typology of violence (direct, structural, and cultural), this study analyzes the cases of the Páramo de Santurbán, the department of Cauca, and the Amazon region. The results reveal that administrative mechanisms such as the diversion of reserves have served as institutional hinges for private accumulation. Furthermore, territorial disputes reveal not a postconflict scenario, but rather a reconfiguration of the war aimed at controlling strategic resources, which leads to dispossession, environmental degradation, and intergenerational collective trauma. It is concluded that achieving genuine peace requires going beyond the mere demobilization of armed groups and transforming the extractivist development model.