The Breakout Yell in the Recent Protests in Colombia, or the Appearance of Politics

Abstract

This article examines the transnational character of the social outburst and protests since 2019 in Colombia. It distances itself from the analytical model of disruptive protests by Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow y Charles Tilly (2005), which takes for granted the existence of politics. Instead, it delves into the conditions of its emergence. It is argued that the difficulty in characterizing the outburst experienced in Colombia lies in the fact that this outburst has national, continental and global ties that were not foreseen. The unpredictable —and transnational— nature of what happened opens the invitation to use other ways of thinking about the problem. In fact, what needs to be done is to construct the problem. Using Jacques Rancière’s aesthetics and political philosophy, it is argued that i) the nature of protest changed and ii) the countenance of the social actors changed. This allows us to affirm that what emerged in the protests in Colombia was not the vandal: it was the people, “the rest.”