Territorial Coloniality and Tourism as a Strategy for Building Territorial Peace: Horizons and Challenges in Colombia

This article addresses the understanding of conflicts and violence from the perspective of territorial coloniality as a theoretical proposal. The aim is to comprehend the roots of ongoing non-peace in the world through a characterization of territorial conflict and territorial coloniality. Furthermore, territorial peace is proposed as a strategy for transforming and overcoming the disorder of territorial life. Building upon this reflection, the second part this study questions the possibilities, limits, and challenges of tourism as a strategy for constructing territorial peace. Additionally, a deeper exploration is conducted into the connection between tourism and key elements in the construction of territorial peace, such as sustainability, equity, and active participation of local communities. This article is important to rethink the meanings, horizons and challenges of tourism policies that are framed within objectives of peace and social and environmental transformation, in order to advance their goals. The work is built from a critical review of some concepts related to the way of understanding wars/violence/ conflicts in the world and Colombia, from a combined perspective of political ecology, critical geography and decolonial studies that are condensed in the concept of territorial coloniality. In the second part, from these theoretical perspectives, the review of three essential axes for the construction of `tourism alternatives is addressed: territorial peace, equity, and sustainability.