Preserving the archives of Medellín's social justice movements, in partnership with the Komuni collective
Materials from the collections, courtesy of Komuni
With a Planning Grant from UCLA Library’s Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP), Neogranadina is working with the Komuni collective to inventory and preserve the archives of Medellín’s social justice movements.
From the late 1950s, in the wake of the period of conflict known as La Violencia, social justice movements emerged in Medellín that defended human rights through organizing. Many of those involved had been displaced from the countryside and settled in the informal neighborhoods — the tugurios — that grew along the river and on the city’s outskirts. Komuni, an independent activist collective, has gathered and safeguarded the archives of these movements: five thematic collections — Vicente Mejía Espinosa; Camilo Torres Restrepo and the Frente Unido; Golconda; Iglesia de los Pobres; and A Luchar — spanning 1958 to 2006, in pamphlets, photographs, newspapers, audio recordings, correspondence, and born-digital files.
Working alongside Komuni, we are describing and inventorying the collections, clarifying the rights to the materials, and surveying related archives of grassroots organizing in the city. The resulting open-access inventory will be published by MEAP and on our digital archive platform, zasqua.org, with a copy deposited at the UCSB Library — a foundation for preserving these archives and keeping them at work in Medellín’s present.
This project is funded by a 12-month Planning Grant from UCLA Library’s Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP), as part of its seventh cohort (2024–25).
