Sobre la figura del campesino y la gestión del territorio: Una aproximación desde Nariño (Colombia)

This paper aims to show the trajectory of the “campesino” notion in the Colombian institutional context. “Campesino” has been used as a territorial management strategy to organize a set of technologies, populations, crops, and soil use. Peasant organizations in Colombia today seek to position this notion as a category of effective citizenship, and social ordering of their territories. To do this, we carried out a descriptive study of the configuration of the figure of the peasant from the institutional level facing the context of Nariño. Methodologically, we used different qualitative research tools to dig in an ethnographic perspective of the agrarian, environmental, and social organization history of the region. We raise some reflections on current uses and disputes through institutional frameworks that seek, or omit, their recognition as an agrarian and citizenship category. Finally, we provide some reflections on the strategies and frameworks to regulate rural spaces based on subject-centered categories and territorial policies. The importance of this analysis is the visibility of the strategies of community organizations to build, from their local experience, notions of peasantry focused on the recognition of citizenship, beyond the functional and productive character posed by the State.