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Reappearing in the City: Black Women Confronting Forced Disappearance in Colombia

March 6, 2026

In Colombia, forced disappearance is a wound that never heals. For Black women, however, that wound does not only mark the body: it shapes territory, everyday life, and future possibilities. In Cali, where thousands of people displaced by the internal armed conflict have settled on the city’s margins, disappearance has become a structural element of urban life. It is not merely a crime; it is a way of ordering space, of delineating who is entitled to full existence and who is relegated to the shadows. This article reflects on the geography of forced disappearance and highlights how Black women have transformed the absence of their loved ones into a radical political practice that reconfigures the very meaning of life in the city.