Over 10 years ago, Tania Lizarazo met with Justa Mena Córdoba in Chocó, Colombia. Before Mena Córdoba passed away, Lizarazo promised to tell her story as one of the founding commissioners of the Gender Commission of COCOMACIA, Colombia’s largest Afro-Colombian peasants’ association.

With her new book, Postconflict Utopias: Everyday Survival in Chocó, Colombia (University of Illinois Press, 2024), Lizarazo fulfills that promise. “It means a lot to me to publish this book as this was my first collaborative research project,” says Lizarazo, associate professor of modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication and global studies. “I promised Justa that I would do my best to share her story and legacy of peace-building amidst decades of ongoing violence by supporting women’s daily work.”

Lizarazo’s interest in Latin American cultural studies and transnational feminist research led her to explore the Gender Commission of COCOMACIA. Curious to learn more, Lizarazo reached out to Mena Córdoba. She invited Lizarazo to her home and the headquarters of the commission, both in Chocó, located in the northwest, bordering Panama and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and where the largest Afro-Colombian community in the country lives. For over a decade, Mena Córdoba served as Lizarazo’s friend, mentor, and fellow researcher.

Many scholars, says Lizarazo, both Colombian like herself, and foreign, research the Colombian Pacific and use ethnography as their main research approach. She notes that while she uses ethnography, her work also places the community on equal footing with researchers. The book documents the collaboration between Lizarazo and the Afro-Colombian women of the Gender Commission. The team used digital storytelling tools to document the commission’s daily efforts to build networks and share resources that strengthen their families, schools, jobs, and communities. 

“Sometimes we highlight protests but ignore the daily mundane actions that build over time and make collective survival possible. This is the case for Black women in the Colombian Pacific,” explains Lizarazo for The Conversation. “Their solidarity is a reminder that peace and justice are a collaborative, everyday effort. As Justa told me in 2012: “One cannot change the world by herself.”

Learn more about Lizarazo’s collaboration with fellow UMBC faculty María Célleri, Yolanda Valencia, and Thania Muñoz to document the experiences of Latinx communities with Latinx communities in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.

Visit the Walters Art Museum’s new “Latin American Art/ Arte Latinoamericano” exhibit, where Lizarazo contributed her expertise in Colombian history.